


Foreign Heights

by silvervelour



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Brooke and Vanessa meet on vacation, F/F, Jealousy, Kameron is Brooke's sister, Lesbian AU, More tags to be added, Smut, Vanessa visits brooke in Toronto, background trixya if you squint, happy ending!, long distance, strap ons!, tiniest bit of angst, very very light bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-01-07 02:19:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18401153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvervelour/pseuds/silvervelour
Summary: “You’ve ‘gotta let me show you some fun around here-”. Vanessa starts.“-Like, there’s no way I’m letting you just sit around with or without your sister for however long you’re here for”. She concludes.Nodding in agreement, Brooke moves to rest her chin in the palm of her hand. Her elbow squeaks against the table top, and Vanessa bites into her bottom lip to prevent a giggle from toppling past her teeth. Brooke half wishes she hadn’t; Vanessa’s laugh is one that she’s quickly coming to enjoy, when it’s husky and breathy, stupid yet endearing.“I’m stuck in this sauna for another week and a half”. Brooke huffs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'm back! but this time with a different ship! i've only ever written trixya for this fandom and a little sashea, but like everybody else i jumped aboard the branjie train because HELLO have you seen them??? 
> 
> this was super super fun to write, and i'm pretty happy with how it turned out!! there's a tiny reference to one of my other fics "take off your pink cowboy boots" if you look close enough - i thought i'd leave a little easter egg !
> 
> i won't waffle anymore but i hope you enjoy this!! let me know what you think!

Brooke feels the most at home when she’s cold, shivering.

Wrapped up in layers, sweaters and padded coats with hats and scarves that leave only her frigid nose peaking through, she feels comfortable, familiar. Hailing from Canada, she tackles every winter head on, doesn’t blink twice at having to pull on a pair of gloves every morning before she heads to work, backs out of her drive way in her four wheeler jeep to head to the studio with college kids awaiting her expertise.

She teaches dance - ballet, french trained - and gladly works off the chill of the minus temperatures beyond the studio doors with every grasp of the barre, each arabesque that she has to critique. Her students welcome it, and she gratefully accepts their warmth that does little to diminish the patchy blotches that form on her skin from the arid conditions, the redness of her cheeks.

It’s why when Brooke finds herself sweating, boiling over on the third day of a two week long vacation to somewhere scorching in the middle of Europe that she’s had planned with her sister for months, she seeks out every source of cold she’s able to find. There isn’t much, granted - it’s the middle of September in a Mediterranean climate, is certain that it’s warmer than her hometown has ever been - but even the relief of a frozen water bottle that she clutches against her bare stomach proves to be a relief.

She’s sprawled out across a sun lounger, hidden beneath an umbrella that casts only a fragment of the shade that she wishes it did, with two already drained bottles of aforementioned water balanced precariously on the folding table next to her. Twisting open the third, she takes a sip. The ice cold liquid is smooth trickling down her throat, her gulps making her gut seize with the sudden shock. A hiccup passes her lips, and she licks across them with the tip of her tongue, the remainder of worn off lipgloss being smudged against her teeth.

Brooke doesn’t care. It’s ludicrous, stupid, how her body has seemingly become used to one extreme end of the weather spectrum but not the other, and she’s groaning audibly, yanking her bleached, shoulder length hair back into a makeshift pony tail with the hair tie that she keeps looped around her left wrist.

Glancing downwards, she sighs. There’s a circular ring of pale, white skin where said hair tie has been removed from, the remainder of her body already glowing somewhere between tanned and sun burnt from the minimum exposure to the strong rays that she’s had in the days prior. She runs her finger across the line that’s barely a centimetre thick, squints her eyes against the bright light that peaks over the rim of her sunglasses.

It’s not noticeable - any onlookers wouldn’t take a second glance, would merely think that she had spent an hour too long lazing around the pool that sits metres away - but Brooke knows that the demarcation line is there, and it’s all that’s flashing in her mind when she lifts herself slowly from the sun lounger, trudges bare foot towards the bar on the other side of the communal area. 

Brooke still has her mostly full bottle of water in hand, and places it down onto the marble top bar when she arrives, hoists herself up onto one of the barstools that are a sticky, tacky faux leather. The material sticks to Brooke’s thighs, causes a ripping echo to erupt when she peels them away tentatively, grimacing in discomfort. The bartender looks on sympathetically, and Brooke rolls her eyes.

She doesn’t care for it, realises she doesn’t care for a lot, and flags up the second worker that she spots. She orders a cocktail from the menu that’s a mix of Spanish, Italian and what she assumes is Portuguese, or possibly Greek, and butchers the syllables; _predictably_.

When her drink is served after she’s payed with her euros and tipped the jar that’s ladened with luminous paper umbrellas, it’s strikingly orange. She holds the glass up to her chest, mocks herself for its similarity with her swimsuit - an orange bandeau bikini that still feels like too much material - and walks back to her surprisingly still vacant sun lounger with the taste of tequila and passion fruit on her tongue. 

The floor beneath her feet is molten, warm cream tiles that remain slippery throughout the entirety of the day, courtesy of the clangs of visitors who forgo drying themselves off from the pool with their towels, insistent that _they’re on vacation, it’s acceptable_.

It’s _not_.

Brooke sinks back into the somewhat soft cushioning of her sun lounger, scans her eyes across the surrounding crowds of people in search of Kameron - her sister - whilst she sips eagerly at her glass. The alcohol burns at the parched skin of her lips on initial contact, stinging and piercing, but then her glass is empty, and she’s setting it onto the same collapsible table as her forgotten bottles of water.

Regret hits her within minutes. The alcohol only succeeds in increasing her body temperature further, sets her chest alight in flames that burn burn burn, and her forehead is dripping in droplets of sweat that trickle back into her hairline, down her neck by the time she lays eyes on Kameron.

She’s sat poolside, legs dangling into the pool, hair swept back away from her face and skin bronzing evenly. Her red sunglasses are perched on her head, acting as a headband in the sweltering heat, and Brooke narrows her eyes to decipher who she’s talking to. She’s unable to do so, and gives up after attempting for longer than she knows she should have, feels the jealously over Kameron’s composure blooming in her throat before she decides she’s at an unfair disadvantage; Kameron’s been living in the comparatively warmer Nashville for the best part of a decade.

It’s another twenty minutes - maybe, Brooke looses track of the seconds that tick by in the forms of couples giggling amongst themselves, children bustling around their parents legs - before Kameron glances towards her, waves in acknowledgment. Brooke waves back at her, crooks her finger, signals _come here_ when the woman that Kameron had been engaged in conversation with plummets into the depths of the pool, re-emerges with her hair slicked back by water.

Kameron nods her head, and is lifting herself by her arms from the side of the pool until she’s standing, biceps bulging with the effort. She manoeuvres her way around the perimeters of the pool and to Brooke’s side, perches herself on the end of Brooke’s sun lounger with a lack of grace that Brooke finds laughable. Kameron frowns, cocks an eyebrow in the direction of Brooke’s empty glass. 

“You’re drinking already?”. Kameron chuckles.

Her voice sounds clearer than Brooke’s used to - she thinks that it might be the humidity, the thick air that’s having opposite effects on the both of them - and Brooke shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly. Gesturing to the small congregation that’s gathered by the bar since she’d last visited it, she sighs.

“It’s eleven in the morning and we’re on vacation, give me a _fuckin_ ’ break”. Brooke contests.

Sitting up straight, she crosses her legs, right over left. Kameron mirrors her, and Brooke hunches her shoulders, remembers that she’s at least a half head taller than Kameron. She feels like too much, too present, and squashes her arms to her sides, longs to be able to fold in on herself the same way Kameron appears to. Her long, muscular, dancer arms aren’t made for lounging around and catching a tan, she knows, is better suited to the harsh conditions of an air conditioned studio where she can elongate her body fully without fear of stretching off of the end of the barely five foot loungers.

It’s diminishing.

Kameron observes her cautiously, yet relents when Brooke crosses her arms over her mid section, strokes her thumb across the sliver of pale skin on her wrist that she’s still fixated on.

“No judgment-“. Kameron exhales before halting.

“-I just think, I don’t know, maybe you should do something other than sit around here all day?”. She finishes.

Gnawing at the inside of her cheek, Brooke releases a ragged breath. She doesn’t want to. Doesn’t feel the need to converse with anybody that isn’t Kameron throughout the entirety of their vacation; she knows that she could easily survive the two week duration with a mere check in or two a day from her sister and the company that the numerous books that she brought and the alcohol at the bar could provide her with. 

“Strangely, that never crossed my mind”. Brooke deadpans, sends daggers into kameron’s eyes.

They’re _icy_ , icy blue and teal and amber, and Kameron’s initial instinct is to give in, up and leave the sun lounger and return to the pool, allow Brooke to stew in her isolation. She doesn’t do so, however, and places her hands on Brooke’s shoulders in lieu of her own knees in a gesture that’s both supportive and defeating.

“What did you just tell me?-“. Kameron questions hypothetically, her voice climbing the octaves.

“- _Oh_! That’s it, yeah, we’re on _vacation_! For _two_ weeks!”. She continues, dramatises until Brooke’s lips upturn to form a faint smile.

Brooke purses her lips, nods her head in understanding - Kameron’s wiser than she’d like to admit, with her job as wellness coach, profound and knowledgeable about the would surrounding her - and perks up her posture once more when Kameron drops her arms. Grinning encouragingly, Kameron shuffles closer.

“You need to relax, like, _really_ relax. When was the last time you took time off work, that wasn’t for the holiday season?”. Queries Kameron, tilts her head inquisitively.

Brooke doesn’t know. Her mind is unable to convince her that it has been in the last week, or month, or year. She flicks through her recent recollections, comes up empty, and is forced to rummage through the compartments of memories that she keeps stored away in vaults. She unlocks them, ganders throughout each one before she has an incline; a winters day in January, the year prior. 

“ _See_!-”. Kameron interjects before Brooke’s able to respond verbally.

“-You can’t even remember, can you?”. She prods.

She can’t. Not _really_. Her body feels drained, constantly and consistently tired from the classes that she teaches seven days a week, with the exception of Wednesday mornings when one of her coworkers opens the studio for her, ensures her that she is capable. Her joints ache, as do her muscles, sore from being ten years out of college and into her career, having performed in renowned showcases as a professional before retiring to her home town as a coach for the students that she’s able to reflect on being.

“Look-“. Brooke tries.

“-I know, I’m tired as _fuck_ and need to let loose or whatever it is you’re ‘gonna suggest, but can’t I just have a while longer to chill out?”. Brooke huffs.

She doesn’t understand why she’s asking for permission. She knows that Kameron wouldn’t dare stop her, would be content if she was adamant on supergluing herself to the lounger that she’s occupying for the remainder of their vacation. She’s confident that she would be left to wallow in peace, bask in the burning strobes of sunlight that would singe her to a crisp; but it’s not what she wants, she admits to herself.

“God, of _course_ you can, but talk to people! Meet some fun assholes that you’ll never have to see again! You’ve never been shy, why start now?-“. Kameron pauses to giggle in disbelief.

“-Look at yourself Brooke! You’re _hot_ , we’re _both_ hot! Go and use that!”. She concludes. 

Brooke’s cheeks darken, and then she’s laughing brazenly. It’s not a fact that she’d been unaware of - she knows what her reflection looks like, albeit an egotistical assumption - but it’s jarring to here it coming from Kameron who hands out her compliments more sparingly than Brooke ever has with her usual kind gestures and words of affirmation. It’s an encouraging statement, one that has Brooke humming agreeably, releasing her hair from her dishevelled pony tail with a single tug of the elastic.

The action sends her hair tumbling, falling, pooling, until it sits in loose waves that look intentional, for the most part, that brush against her shoulders, the apex of her spine.

“That’s better-”. Kameron smirks, stands abruptly.

“-Now, I’m ‘gonna head back to the pool and live out my best mermaid fantasies, and you, you are ‘gonna talk to at least one new person today, got it, B?”. Kameron points her finger accusingly toward Brooke. 

Brooke salutes mockingly, promises herself that she will, and is halfway to tuning back out of the murmurs that surround her when Kameron whips her head back around, signals to Brooke’s left innocently. Brooke follows her gaze, and lands her pupils on the glimmering shoulders of a woman that Brooke’s unable to recognise, her face disfigured by the wide brimmed hat that drapes down across it, casting a wide shadow. 

“The cute brunette next to you might be a good place to start!”. Kameron bellows, witnesses said woman remove her hat in order to scrutinise the both of them.

Brooke wants the ground to swallow her up.

*****

The brunette sat next to her is _definitely_ a good place to start.

Within seconds of Kameron padding away, the woman, now free of her hat, turns her body to face Brooke. She sits on her knees on her respective sun lounger, grins mischievously when Brooke raises an eyebrow, glances briefly down at her lap where she has her hands folded neatly. Twiddling her fingers, white painted fingernails tapping against one and other, Brooke clears her throat.

No words leave her mouth.

Brooke still wants the ground to swallow her up, chew her and spit her back out - preferably into the woman’s arms that are elongated above her head, a groan reverberating in her chest as she stretches - but then said woman is speaking first, her words hitting Brooke like darts to her skin.

“She’s right”. The woman husks.

“What?”. Brooke succeeds in muttering.

“Your sister?-“. The woman asks, receives a dumbfounded nod in response.

“-She’s right”.

Brooke blinks slowly. She feels like her brain is functioning slower than her body as she twists to dangle her feet off of the edge of the lounger, the words that shoot in through one ear and out of the other computing as if she’s four or five cocktails deep into the morning, not just the one that she’d sunk down.

She doesn’t know what to say.

Taking in the woman’s appearance, all dark hair with highlighted, caramel ends flowing in tendrils down her back along with tanned, tattooed skin that rivals Kameron’s, Brooke takes it upon herself to close her mouth, seize her gaping jaw. The woman giggles airily, albeit deeply, and switches the position of her legs. She pushes them out in front of herself, until her toes reach Brooke’s lounger where she curls them into the soft, supple memory foam, invades Brooke’s space; Brooke allows her to do so.

Her eyes are brown, Brooke is certain - it’s hard to tell beneath the shade of the umbrellas, the occasional prick of sunlight - as are her eyelashes, long and dark and curled to her brow bones. Brooke wants to touch them. She wants to brush them against her fingers, feel each flutter of the woman’s eyelids as she blinks, when she smiles. She’s _smiling smiling smiling_ and -

“Right about what?”. Brooke’s tongue releases itself.

The woman looks startled, momentarily, like she didn’t expect Brooke to speak, and is staring back at her with eyes that are intense, blown out. She regains her poise quickly, however, and tilts her head back in a laugh that causes the man behind her to tut in distain, shake his head miserably. Brooke rolls her eyes at his actions - she doesn’t have enough seconds in the day for irrelevant men - and encourages the woman that she now feels insistent on continuing to talk to with a reassuring simper.

Shrugging, the woman waves towards Brooke’s frame, hunched over and with her elbows propped up on her knees.

“About the fact that you’re hot”. She beams slyly.

Brooke snickers indignantly, feels blankets of warmth draping themselves across her body at the woman’s compliment, the smile that’s still yet to fade from her face. Mumbling a barely legible _thank you_ , Brooke straightens her back, tenses her shoulders and then releases them. The woman watches her do so, and then she’s shaking her head to herself, drawing her mind out of whatever gutter she had thrown it into, beneath floods of blonde and sunburnt skin and tropical eyes.

“I’m Vanessa”. The woman corrects. 

 _Vanessa_. Brooke runs it over in her mind a couple of times, mouths her lips along to the three syllables that stumble as she pronounces them. _Vanessa Vanessa_ _Vanessa_ ; Brooke thinks that it suits her, with her loosely connected vowels and slinking tongue, her minimal articulation that’s endearing, almost.

“Vanessa”. Brooke repeats.

“You’re Vanessa too?”. Vanessa squeaks, her mouth snapping shut.

“What? _No_ , I-“. Falters Brooke. 

“ _Oh_ ”.

Grinning lopsidedly, Brooke opts for brushing her hair away from her eyes with a single swoop of her fingers. She combs it behind her ears, leaves the thick strands tucked there whilst she gives Vanessa a once over, takes in the seemingly minimal makeup that she has applied across her face - Brooke doesn’t think it’s more than a coat of mascara, blush, lipgloss - and fixes her with a grin.

“Brooke-”. She corrects. 

“It’s _Brooke_ , not Vanessa”. Brooke chuckles tepidly.

Vanessa hums in reply to Brooke’s words, and Brooke watches on with intrigue as Vanessa’s original demeanour restores itself. She exudes a confidence that startles Brooke, one that has her both drooling over her self certainty and crumbling at her feet, presenting herself for Vanessa to scoop up, cradle close to her chest.

She’s still eyeing her, teeth nibbling into her bottom lip. Brooke wants to do it for, has visions of it already manifesting in her mind, but then Vanessa is standing, making the grand total of two steps until she’s able to fold herself onto the end of Brooke’s lounger, bunching up Brooke’s beach towel in the process.

“I thought you weren’t shy, Brooke”. Vanessa emphasises her name.

 _You’ve never been shy, why start now_. Kameron’s words have burnt themselves into the forefront of her skull, have etched themselves into her eardrums, her eyelids that she squeezes shut when Vanessa’s knee brushes against her own accidentally. Brooke stays stoic. Her eyes narrow further and she presses her lips together in modesty, reaches for the half drank bottle of water that Vanessa’s offering to her out of her tote bag that’s tossed haphazardly beneath her lounger.

“It’s not so much _shy_ , more like-“. Brooke unscrews the cap.

“-I’m more over this whole vacation social scene than I thought I would be, _y’know_?”. Her words seem to soften Vanessa.

Humming in agreement, Vanessa watches Brooke drain half of the remaining amount of water in the bottle in as little as three gulps. Brooke is still warm, boiling, knows that she’d be on the verge of overheating if it wasn’t for the constant cold running through her body. Vanessa chuckles - doesn’t mean it menacingly - and holds Brooke’s gaze as Brooke hugs the bottle between her knees, twists the cap back into place.

“I get’cha-”. Vanessa clicks her tongue against her teeth.

“-I’m here with my girls, but one of them hasn’t left her room in over a day because of a hangover and the other is too busy stuffing hot dogs with the guys that work at the bar”. She huffs.

Brooke inhales sharply, lets out a short bark of laughter that becomes infectious, has Vanessa laughing along with her. Leaning forwards, Vanessa clutches at Brooke’s knee that’s nearest to her with both of her hands, nails imprinting half moons into her skin as she slumps forward. Brooke doesn’t complain, and doesn’t dare grumble when Vanessa tosses her hair over one shoulder, drapes it unwittingly across Brooke’s thigh.

“Hot dogs?”. Brooke checks. 

“Hot _hot_ dogs”. Vanessa establishes.

Brooke feels the realisation slap her across the face. It’s abrasive against her cheeks, knocking her senseless before it isn’t, and she’s able to find herself cackling along with Vanessa once more. Their combined chortles draw the attention of passers by, the individuals attempting to relax on the loungers around them. It’s laughable; Brooke’s outlook has flipped full circle within minutes, and she’s shooting daggers to the man adjacent to Vanessa that keeps murmuring indignantly over Vanessa’s shoulder.

“I mean-“. Brooke hiccups.

“-I guess we all have our preferences”. She bites her tongue.

Twitching one brow higher than the other, Vanessa smirks. Brooke can see the connotations dancing behind her eyes, the fire that’s growing, expanding, burning through her pupils, the whites of her eyes that are being overtaken by want, need. She’s looking at Brooke like Brooke has been looking at each and every bottle of water since she stepped out of her air conditioned room the morning prior - thirsty, desperate - and Brooke wants to put her out of her misery, convince Vanessa’s hands on her kneecap to travel higher than they already have before -

“I’d like to get to know yours”. Vanessa husks. 

Brooke can’t help the giggle that she’s unable to hold back, the faint chuckle that escapes from the confines of her lungs. It’s light, airy, is barely noticeable over a woman across the pool from them beginning to whine about a lost earring, but Vanessa catches it, registers it in her heart that’s beating out of her chest, up through her throat. Tilting her head, Brooke’s jaw goes slack.

“My what?”. She checks.

“Your _preferences_ ”. Vanessa directs.

Her tone is self certain, would border on arrogant if it wasn’t for the soft, serene smile painted across her face. The simper doesn’t quell even as Brooke hums nonsensically, mumbles _yes, yeah, yes_ under her breath, into the skin of Vanessa’s cheekbone as she gets unimaginably closer.

Brooke wants her nearer still. She wants Vanessa in her arms _yesterday_ , doesn’t understand her body’s change of heart, the reactions that go against her instinctive will. She’s unable to remember the last time that she saw a woman who had magnetised her so quickly; part of her knows it was probably back in her days on the road, dancing and touring, adoring and worshipping bodies briefly in every state of North America.

It’s maddening, but then it stops.

Vanessa retracts her hands from Brooke’s knee, uncrosses her own legs in order to stand, stretch the muscles of her back and gather up her belongings. She slings her tote bag over one shoulder, tosses her beach towel over the other and slips on a pair of red sandals that are just a shade away from matching her one piece, plunging swimsuit exactly.

She looks ready to leave, shuffle back to her hotel room that could be on the third, seventh, thirteenth floor for all Brooke knows. She’s prepared, and is rounding the opposite side of Brooke’s lounger wordlessly. She leaves Brooke thinking that she’s lost her chance, has forsaken any opportunity to avoid spending the remainder of her vacation sat bored out of her mind, until Vanessa is speaking once more, coaxing Brooke to her feet.

“Do ‘ya ‘wanna start with getting some lunch?-“. Vanessa offers. 

“-The food court has air con and you look like you fuckin’ need it”. She finishes, winks subtly.

Brooke sighs in relief.

 _Yes_.

She’s never been more grateful for Kameron’s interference.

*****

The food court, true to Vanessa’s word, is the source of calm that Brooke had been longing for.

It doesn’t come in the form of the children that are scarping around, arguing with parents and relatives, neither in the employees that bellow directions at each other from each end of the serving line. It simply manifests itself in the air conditioning that beats down upon her skin the instant she throws her body into a corner booth, flesh soothing against the frigid leather as Vanessa stares down at her, sits herself down elegantly.

Brooke lets her eyes flutter shut as she props her head up against the inside wall of said booth, feels her chest thumping and blood rushing through her veins. Vanessa’s leg is pressed up against hers beneath the light, beechwood table already, and Brooke doesn’t doubt that she would be complaining about the heat of her calf if it wasn’t for the way that the hairs on the back of her neck prickled in response.

It’s a natural reaction, and she doesn’t have it within herself to manoeuvre herself again, rob herself of being able to brush her leg up against Vanessa’s that’s smooth, velvety. Vanessa’s looking at her like she knows, and is slipping a menu across the glossy table towards Brooke by the time that Brooke cranks her eyes open, takes in the overly artificial light of the establishment and the aqua blue walls that seek to mimic the tropic sky outdoors.

She supposes that they do, in a way. There are houseplants dotted throughout the room, mini cacti sat on each table top in addition to palms in patterned, terracotta pots that line the rows of booths and smaller two seaters. They’ve accomplished capturing the nuance of their surroundings, but have dipped it in ice, frozen it for decades, and Brooke is beyond thankful, silently sings the praises of each kiss of cool air that lands on her temples. 

“You’re really not used to heat, _huh_?”. Vanessa taunts. 

Her eyes are bright, all seeing, and are mocking Brooke in a way that has her clenching her thighs together, dropping her gaze to glance at the menu bashfully. She reads through the options carefully, but comes up empty when she clears her throat, realises that she hasn’t taken in a single word save for one of the cocktails that was titled _cherry_ ; Vanessa’s swimsuit clouding her judgment.

Sighing, Brooke shakes her head no. She’s not used to it, has never been and arguably never will become accustomed to the heights of the foreign weather that blister up her fair skin with such ease, leave her as dishevelled as she knows that she appears with her matted blonde hair and oily, sweaty skin. 

“What makes you say that?”. Brooke banters.

She touches her hand to her forehead, blots away remaining droplets of sweat that threaten to drip to her eyebrows, fall to her eyelashes and render her to blinking furiously to diminish them. Vanessa purses her lips tightly, forms a straight line that bursts as she laughs. Her cheeks pucker, dimples becoming prominent, and Brooke wants to press in to them, watch Vanessa’s eyes crinkle further in delight.

Brooke doesn’t do it. She instead challenges Vanessa with a playful glare, chooses to flick through the menu once more. She spots the fries, and decides that they’ll do, will order them with a glass _or_ _three_ of juice when the waitress makes her rounds, is forced to observe Brooke and Vanessa who don’t know each other, really, but long to, wish to be _closer closer closer._

“Where are you from?”. Vanessa settles.

“Canada, _or_ Toronto if you ‘wanna be specific”. Drawls Brooke.

“I like specifics”. Vanessa teases.

“You do?-”. Questions Brooke, gets a short not in response.

“-What part of the surface of the sun are you from, then? _Specifically_?”. Brooke retaliates. 

Rolling her eyes, Vanessa cackles. _What part of the surface of the sun are you from._ The words ring in her ears akin to a bell, piercing and all encompassing. Her eyes sparkle with joy, mirth; Brooke wants to drown in the depths of them more than she does the pool back at the communal area.

“Florida”. Vanessa clarifies.

“So _not_ the sun?”. Brooke checks.

“Might as well be”. She reason.

Brooke shrugs nonchalantly. She doesn’t know, has never been to Florida, has barely known of any of her family members or friends that have vacationed there. She understands that it’s warm - probably, it could be the equivalent of a Canadian summer for all that she knows - but Vanessa is glowing, looking like the warmth invigorates her instead of drains her like it does to Brooke.

She’s not envious. She’s far from it, wants to bask in the aura that Vanessa exudes instead of trampling on it like she assumes some would. It presents itself like a blanket of calm, calmer than the initial feeling that had washed over Brooke’s being when she has stepped into the air conditioned room, and she’s not surprised when Vanessa waves over a passing waitress with ease, lures her with her relaxed smile. 

“Split the fries?”. Brooke offers.

Grinning, Vanessa wets her lips. The answer is evident, obvious in the minuscule hum that Vanessa proposes to her, the way that Vanessa becomes the first of the two to reposition her legs, slot her knee between both of Brooke’s. Brooke allows her to do it, welcomes the contact with a squeeze of her thighs and becomes content with slumping further into the booth, her body temperature finally lowering.

The waitress nears, and Brooke doesn’t fret about speaking. Vanessa orders for the both of them, checks with Brooke that mango juice is suffice before reeling off their requests to the woman that stands obediently. She walks away as quickly as she had arrived, and Vanessa’s resuming their conversation before Brooke has time to inhale, exhale raggedly through her nose.

“You’ve ‘ _gotta_ let me show you some fun around here-”. Vanessa starts.

“-Like, there’s no way I’m letting you just sit around with or without your sister for however long you’re here for”. She concludes.

Nodding in agreement, Brooke moves to rest her chin in the palm of her hand. Her elbow squeaks against the table top, and Vanessa bites into her bottom lip to prevent a giggle from toppling past her teeth. Brooke half wishes she hadn’t; Vanessa’s laugh is one that she’s quickly coming to enjoy, when it’s husky and breathy, stupid yet endearing. 

“I’m stuck in this sauna for another week and a half”. Brooke huffs.

She looks on with blazed eyes, gawks as Vanessa’s face lights up in glee, mischief running through each muscle of her face that twitches. She looks happy, thrilled by Brooke’s admission, and scrunches up her nose humbly. The action sends Brooke’s chest fluttering, her heart seizing, and she’s forcing down the thoughts in her mind that are screaming _Vanessa Vanessa Vanessa_ when Vanessa’s speaking once more, looping her fingers through Brooke’s free hand.

“Plenty of time”. Vanessa smirks.

Brooke doesn’t think it will be.

*****

It _isn’t_. 

On her fourth day that she spends with Vanessa, exploring each facility and amenity their hotel and resort has to offer, Brooke decides that she’s going to need an extra week, or a handful of months that are unattainable, out of reach for as long as the universe is adamant that her respective vacation has to come to an end. She learns that Vanessa is due to leave the day before her, fly back to the equally as sweltering state of Florida.

She doesn’t want it to happen.

What she once thought would be a tedious, strenuous trip to a foreign country with Kameron, has been converted with ease into a treasured seclusion if relaxed existence by Vanessa. Vanessa; Brooke allows herself to become absorbed in her ways, relishes every time that she succeeds in drawing the laugh that she’s come to replay on a loop in her mind from Vanessa’s mouth, each fleeting touch that Vanessa ghosts across her arms or her legs, shoulders or face.

Everything’s heightened, Brooke knows that much. It’s baffling, contradicts everything she’s ever believed and preached about lust and attraction, want and infatuation. Vanessa destroys it with each atom of her being, all of her slurred words and punctuated expletives that Brooke takes greedily, stores away for when they retreat to their rooms that are three floors apart at the end of each night, when the small bar in the lobby has closed and the street lights flicker ominously outside.

Brooke feels like the heat is making her delirious, and would be concerned if it wasn’t for the way that Vanessa reciprocated her undivided attention with exuberance and a reassurance that she liked it. _Likes_ it.

She’s content, happy to feel things out with the tips of her fingers and the ends of her wits as she goes, and is unbothered when Kameron confronts her about the hours on end that she’s been spending with Vanessa, on the rare occasion that they both find themselves sprawled out across the mattresses of their shared room.

“So, _Vanessa_ huh?”. Kameron jibes.

Laid out on her front, fingers digging through a bag of chips, Kameron smirks. Crumbs litter the corners of her mouth along with her chin, and Brooke shakes her head mockingly, motions for Kameron to wipe them away with her greasy, oil covered fingers. Her movement only worsens the situation, but Brooke has gone past the point of paying attention to it as soon as her mind hones in on Vanessa.

“Yeah-”. Brooke grins.

“-What are you saying?”. She becomes unable to hide the blush that’s creeping up her bare, makeup free cheeks.

Kameron, shrugging her shoulders and feigning nonchalance, closes the bag of chips loosely, rolls onto her back and props her head up on one of the many pillows she has stacked against her headboard. Brooke watches her from where she’s curled up on her own bed, body directed towards the stand alone fan they have recycling the same, dry air around the room, and runs her fingers through her tangling hair.

“I’m _saying_ -“. Kameron dramatises.

“-That you, Miss Brooklyn, actually took my advice for once and it payed off”. She gloats.

Brooke can’t deny that she’s right - for once - and hums her defeat tepidly. Kameron is right, positively so, and Brooke doesn’t complain when she cheers triumphantly, pumps a fist in the air in over-exaggeration. Talking to Vanessa paid off; to what extent she doesn’t know, though is keen to find out as she continues to tread the unspoken connection that exists between them, the silent promises that exist in ephemeral touches.

“I guess it did-”. Admits Brooke.

 _Unquestionably_.

“-But don’t let it inflate your ego too much. We’re just having fun”. She warns.

Kameron holds her hands up, surrenders with an illegible murmur as she reaches once again for the bag of discarded chips. Her fingers brush against the white linen of the bedsheets before they come in contact with the rustling plastic of the chip packet, and Brooke recoils at the break in the tranquil atmosphere cloaking the room.

Unapologetically, Kameron continues munching through each chip until she reaches the bottom of the bag, crumples it up into a ball and lobs it towards the trash can in the corner of the room. She misses by a long shot - Brooke could have told her that she wasn’t going to land it before the item had even left her hand - and pouts melodramatically, opens her mouth in preparation of continuing their discussion moments later.

“At least tell me a little about her-“. Kameron pleads.

“-Give me the _tiniest_ bit of satisfaction and I’ll drop it, _come_ _on_ , where is she from? What does she do?”. She questions.

 _She’s from Florida, of Puerto Rican heritage and_ \- she clears her throat.

Brooke doesn’t know.

Her jaw stiffens, then clenches down on itself. She doesn’t know, has no incline as to what Vanessa does when she’s not busying herself with taking a vacation during the heights of summer, strutting around in her fluorescent swimsuits that draw Brooke’s eyes inwards. Brooke kicks herself mentally, battles with her internal instigators that are telling her she should have known; they’ve covered so much ground, yet received few answers that Brooke knows matter, realistically.

Brooke’s back to feeling like she wants the ground to swallow her up. She wishes the bed would open up beneath her, suck her down into the springs of the mattress that threaten to pop against her spine, jolting her off of the bed. She doubts she’d find any issue with it, would be content if it meant she could avoid kameron’s judgemental gaze that’s burning into the side of her head, boring holes through to her skull.

“ _Oh_ “. Kameron realises.

Nodding, Brooke lets out a groan that reverberates around the entirety of the room. She feels screwed, fucked, believes that every god that she doesn’t have faith in have joined forces in order to render her a wreck, whining into her hands as she bows her head. Kameron looks on sympathetically, and only braves speaking once Brooke has lifted her head once more, began staring blankly at the white, clinical wall ahead of her.

“Y’know, you could just ask her later”. Kameron suggests.

Contemplating, Brooke nods, furrows her brows in concentration. She could, she can, would easily be able to slip a question about Vanessa’s career, her life outside of their circumstantially conceived haven that has become one, long continual daze into a conversation. It’s bizarre - she’s overreacting, understands that she is - and finds herself smiling thankfully over at Kameron for the second time in less than a week; a rarity.

Brooke decides that she will.

*****

When Vanessa mentions secluded hot tubs, located in the left wings of the spa that they’d ventured to the day before, Brooke all but collapses.

It’s five in the afternoon - the highest temperatures forecast for the day have been, gone, dwindled to a tolerable heat - and Brooke becomes unable to conjure up a thought that isn’t sharing a hot tub with Vanessa, jets and pulses of water attacking them blissfully from all angles. 

She’s able to picture Vanessa pressed up against her, skin to skin and words flowing freely between them, discussions of the days that have passed and the few days that are yet to spring upon them, filled with scorching days and lazy nights. Brooke imagines that they’ll lose track of time, and is proven right when its two hours later, the clocks having reached seven in the evening, the sun minutes away from beginning to drop out of the sky.

Both Brooke and Vanessa remain submerged, clothed in merely their swimsuits that Vanessa recalls them wearing on their first day at the pool. Vanessa’s is red, scarlet, is reminiscent of _Baywatch in the 90’s_ , Brooke tells her, compared to her own that is neon, fluorescent, an opposite to the colour wheel of blues and teals surrounding them. Together they form a flame, one that Brooke doesn’t want to extinguish, that Vanessa wishes to continue.

Kicking her legs out in front of her body, Vanessa folds them across Brooke’s lap. The water assists her to do so, and Brooke is left blinking dumbly when Vanessa’s thighs make contact with hers, Vanessa proceeding to loop her arms loosely around Brooke’s waist. Brooke arches her back; it’s a minuscule movement that allows Vanessa’s arms to slot between the small of her back and the edge of the tub that’s pulsating flurries of lukewarm water against the bottom of her spine.

It causes their conversation to dwindle, and Brooke feels her pulse quicken. 

Vanessa works her fingertips rhythmically across the dimples in Brooke’s back - it reminds Brooke of wanting to skim her touch across the ones that appear on Vanessa’s cheeks when she smiles, laughs - and Brooke feels goosebumps spreading upwards from her toes. They travel up the long lengths of her calves, her thighs and eventually to her arms that Vanessa clocks, smirks into Brooke’s shoulder once she establishes why Brooke’s body is wracked by a shiver.

“You good?”. Vanessa chuckles, checks with a peck to Brooke’s collarbone that’s just barely out of reach from her lips.

“ _Mhm_ ”. Brooke squeaks. 

She’s _not_. Brooke knows it and knows that Vanessa is more than aware when she hears her mumble an effected _sure_ over the thudding in her ears. Vanessa is something else - Brooke can’t find a word in her entire vocabulary that would be suffice to describe her - and resigns herself to establishing that Vanessa is simply too much, too intense; Brooke wants all of her.

“Actually-“. Brooke starts, anchors the hand that isn’t busy brushing strands of hair away from her face to Vanessa’s upper thigh.

“-Kameron kinda’ reminded me of something earlier”. She blushes.

Crooking her eyebrows, Vanessa awaits quizzically. She continues nuzzling herself into Brooke’s shoulder - Brooke contemplates telling her to _stop_ , she’s unable to concentrate with Vanessa hanging off of her like she is - but then Vanessa’s laughing. She grows impatient, grasps Brooke’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of the hand that she relocates from Brooke’s back and stares softly, teasingly into her eyes.

Brooke gulps. Vanessa is pressing the pad of her thumb into the swell of Brooke’s bottom lip, is dragging the residue of her peach lip balm down to her chin, all of the way down her neck and to her chest. She pushes said thumb across the protruding bone of Brooke’s sternum, between her breasts that are one heaving breath away from spilling over her bandeau.

Vanessa chuckles, and Brooke’s chasing after her touch, wishes that Vanessa would slide her thumb to her lips once more. She wants to take it between her teeth, suck it into her mouth and watch Vanessa’s eyes roll back into her head. The vision burns, has her eyes screwing shut and her nose scrunching before Vanessa’s able to retaliate, press her lips once, twice to the corner of Brooke’s upturned smile.

“Is this where you tell me you’re leaving tomorrow instead of next week?”. Vanessa jokes.

Brooke snorts.

“No-“. She breaths.

“-I just realised I have _no_ fuckin’ clue what you do”. Brooke confesses.

Turning her face away from Vanessa’s scrutinising gaze, Brooke feels her blush grow further. She’s unable to hide it - her skin is makeup free as well as sunburnt, there’s no chance that she’s escaping Vanessa’s knowing gaze - and avoids spinning her head back around until she’s certain that Vanessa has stopped smirking. She does so slowly, and feels momentarily stupid when she locks eyes with Vanessa, her dark, hazel streaked irises still as soft and adoring, as good natured as they’ve ever been. 

“I dance”. Vanessa states.

She’s a _dancer_ \- Brooke wants to kick herself.

“Wait, dancer? _What_? I-“. Brooke waffles.

“-Me _too_!”. She squawks.

Rolling her eyes, Vanessa nods her head. She could have guessed, from the poise that Brooke holds herself with in addition to her muscles that are defined, ripple when she exerts herself. Vanessa unfolds her arms from Brooke’s body unceremoniously, and repositions herself so that she’s sat atop of Brooke, legs straddling her waist. The water of the tub bubbles around them and covers up to their midriffs; Brooke feels embraced from all angles. 

“I kinda’ gathered that”. Vanessa admits.

Perplexed, Brooke mouths _how, how, when_. She blinks sluggishly as Vanessa drapes her arms around her neck, presses their slippery foreheads together. Vanessa giggles, nods into the minuscule space that she’s forced to create between them when Brooke plants her hands firmly on Vanessa’s waist, digs her nails into the soft mounds of Vanessa’s hips.

“You don’t get arms like that from sittin’ at a computer all day, let me tell ‘ya”. Vanessa grins.

Tightening her arms, Brooke cranes her neck, tilts her head back in a laughter that shakes her body, causes Vanessa to jolt in her lap. Vanessa works on making herself comfortable - she uses the cushioning of Brooke’s thighs to her advantage, sits down, presses the fronts of their bodies up against one and other - and Brooke looks on in awe, finds her face inches from Vanessa’s breasts that bounce with each word that she emphasises.

Brooke is still dumbfounded. Vanessa is a dancer. She’s a _dancer_ , and Vanessa is too, and Brooke lets the fact tug on her heart strings, send her subconscious in to a state of mind that she knows is risky when Vanessa begins placing featherlight kisses across her temples, her closed eyelids and her rounded cheeks. 

“You’re an actual dancer”. Brooke mumbles.

“I am”. Vanessa states proudly.

“I - _What_? What kind? _How_? Have you danced for anybody? Do you teach or _like_ -”. She reels off a full line of questions, halts only when Vanessa hums.

“I’ve done a bit-“. Vanessa downplays.

“-I just got booked for Trixie Mattel’s next tour. You’ve heard of her?”. She checks. 

Vanessa’s face is a combination of smugness and pride, ego and disbelief. She’s proud of herself and her competency, her ability to have caused Brooke to stare back at her blankly with all of the admiration and amazement that she’s ever known to exist. Brooke channels all of it, and Vanessa can’t believe her luck momentarily; Brooke is ethereal, otherworldly, and is letting Vanessa talk about her latest achievements while she’s sat straddling her, breathing hot air into each other’s faces.

She feels like she might explode - Brooke doesn’t think that she’s far behind.

“I’ve heard of her-”. Brooke stammers, focuses on the heat that’s rising between her legs, growing under the grounding weight of Vanessa.

“- _Fuck_ , I trained with her fiancé. _Katya_?”. She informs Vanessa. 

“That’s hot-“. Vanessa husks.

“-That’s _really_ hot”. She finishes.

Brooke blinks once, bites and her bottom lip, and then Vanessa’s lips are on hers. They’re kissing, deep and wanting, intense in a way that Brooke hadn’t been expecting despite longing, hoping for. Vanessa’s lips move against hers tenderly, yet with all of the passion that has remained present in her eyes since Brooke had first glanced into them, and Brooke finds herself unable to ignore the throb that doesn’t fade even when Vanessa pushes her hips downwards, grinds in Brooke’s lap.

Everything’s _hot hot hot_ , despite the cool temperature of the water, and Brooke is panting into Vanessa’s mouth, their lips gliding, slipping, respective lip balm and lip gloss intermingling. Vanessa doesn’t want it to stop; Brooke is solid and statuesque beneath her, hair slicked back from the chlorine blue water that splashes back at them, and is mumbling about how _it’s a small world_ between each fierce, elongated kiss.

Brooke holds her close. It’s reassuring - she knows that her desire is reciprocated in the form of muttered yeses, desperate grasps - and Vanessa keeps her there, hanging off of the edge of delirium that she’s come to accept, wild and unpredictable, until she pulls away with a cackle.

Vanessa’s stomach is rumbling.

Brooke has to laugh at the irony, ribs sore from the strength that the sharp giggle wracks her body with. It’s taken them four days, four days to lock lips and begin to feel out what she knew would lay beyond the overly friendly caresses, the flirtatious comments that Vanessa never slacked on. It’s taken four days, but Brooke doesn’t care, because Vanessa is there, is inviting Brooke back to her room with the promise of uninterrupted space and room service and -

\- _more_.

She wants it, and presses her fingers to Vanessa’s thigh.

“I’ve been trying to get you to my room all week”. Brooke admits with a teasing, exasperated huff.

Nodding, Vanessa grins. She knows, and is lifting herself off of Brooke’s lap within a blink, striding out of the comfort of the tub and into the open air. She wraps herself in a beach towel that barely covers her torso, and winks towards Brooke in reassurance, beckons her out of the steaming room and towards the lobby of the hotel with a crook of her finger.

Brooke beams, and follows wordlessly.

*****

It takes them longer to decide what to order from the menu than it does for the food to arrive.

Vanessa watches Brooke as she scans through the pages of the laminated booklet, can’t help but satisfy the need that’s overtaken her to touch Brooke here, there, glide her fingers across her exposed shoulders. Brooke tells her to stop - she doesn’t mean it, wants Vanessa to keep scratching into her skin, leaving her mark - and laughs when Vanessa reddens, calls through their order with a shake to her voice.

When it turns up, twenty minutes or so later, they eat in silence. With their backs propped up against the headboard of Vanessa’s unmade bed, they devour two portions of fries between them, a side of cookies that Brooke feeds in segments to Vanessa, breaking off piece by piece. Crumbs fall to the mattress - Brooke would normally cock her nose up in disgust - but she doesn’t care, merely brushes them away once their plates are cleared, moved back onto the cart that they arrived on.

Brooke reclines back into the mass off pillows that Vanessa has stacked against aforementioned headboard, and Vanessa falls with her. She rests her head in Brooke’s lap, allows her eyes to slip closed when Brooke weaves her slender fingers in her hair, tugs gently at her roots. It draws a whine from Vanessa’s throat; Brooke crosses her legs tighter as she reaches for her pack of cigarettes.

She lights one.

Beginning to smoke her way through the first, and then a second cigarette, Brooke focuses on the even rise and fall of Vanessa’s body, her breathing that’s deep, settled. She knows that Vanessa isn’t asleep - can tell from the faint grin that grows on her face when Brooke tickles at the small of her back - and directs an exhale of smoke towards the doors of the balcony that Vanessa had left purposefully open, claiming she didn’t mind Brooke smoking indoors.

Brooke thinks that she can guess why.

Vanessa glances up towards her, occasionally, eyes focused on Brooke’s lips as they wrap around the filter of each cigarette that she chain smokes her way through until she’s half a packet in and the sun is three quarters of the way to being set. She keeps her scrutiny trained on how her tongue darts across her upper lip sporadically, her throat that bobs when she swallows, and her teeth that dig into her bottom lip lightly between each cigarette that she lights, extinguishes in the miniature, porcelain ash tray on the bedside table.

She knows that it has Vanessa squirming, as does Brooke’s constant fiddling, the way that she drags her short, manicured nails over the crown of Vanessa’s scalp. It’s alluring, Brooke feels delirious, but doesn’t have either the heart or the patience to keep up with the game that she’s unwittingly participating in when Vanessa is groaning audibly, pressing her head further into Brooke’s side.

“Feels good”. Vanessa breathes.

“Mhm?”. Brooke smirks.

Her hands continue tousling Vanessa’s hair, and Vanessa’s eyes stay locked on Brooke’s lips, chained and padlocked to them. It’s startling - Brooke had been under the assumption that it was the smoking that Vanessa had been fixated on - but Vanessa’s looking at her like she still wants her, wants her more than before, and Brooke wants her right back; she can feel herself practically dripping down her thighs beneath her oversized shirt. 

“Let me up-“. Brooke demands.

“-I’m gonna’ close the doors”. She insists.

Vanessa doesn’t protest, raises from the bed, is hot on Brooke’s heels as Brooke pulls the doors to the secluded balcony closed, draws the thin, floating mesh curtains behind them. They drift down towards the floor, brush against the bridges of Brooke’s feet as she scrunches her toes into the woven rug beneath her, acknowledges the goosebumps budding on her back when Vanessa snakes her arms around her waist.

Brooke relaxes into her touch. Vanessa’s hands wander aimlessly, draw Brooke’s shirt upwards from the tops of her thighs until it’s bunched around the muscles of her stomach. It remains there, loose yet more restrictive than Brooke wishes it was until Vanessa moves up up up, palms Brooke’s breasts, now free from her earlier bandeau swimsuit, and cups them.

Vanessa’s fingers work tenderly, as do her lips - she’s placing delicate, sucking kisses to Brooke’s shoulders that are exposed from where her shirt has slipped - and Brooke’s moaning freely, her legs threatening to give out when Vanessa pinches both nipples between her thumbs and forefingers simultaneously.

“Shit”. Brooke husks.

Chuckling openly, Vanessa continues. Her hands grapple for the soft fabric of Brooke’s white shirt, and tug it over her head with a pleased hum. Brooke’s left stood in merely her panties - they’re black and lacy, do little to cover her ass or the small patch of blonde pubic hair that she keeps trimmed - and Vanessa is gawking, spinning Brooke around so that they’re stood facing one and other.

“Yeah, _shit_ ”. Vanessa blinks.

Brooke wants to laugh. Vanessa is ghosting her hands across her stomach, down to her ass where she grabs, hard, has Brooke’s eyes watering noticeably. The room feels too hot, too small - Brooke only has to walk Vanessa two steps backwards until they reach the bed - and she’s pushing Vanessa down, sinking her into the mattress as she drapes her body across Vanessa’s.

Vanessa is still clothed, for the most part. Much like Brooke, she’d shed her bikini in lieu of underwear and an oversized shirt once she’d left the hot tub, had scarpered into the changing rooms with Brooke in tow, hot kisses being passed freely between them. Her shirt is red however, in contrast to Brooke’s white, and Brooke takes it upon herself to unbutton it at a pace which Vanessa deems to be criminal. 

It’s slow, steady, and Vanessa is canting her hips up impatiently. She receives a stern, warning glance from Brooke when she does so, and opts for pouting, hopes that Brooke will take pity on her and touch her where and how she’s been needing for hours, _days_.

Brooke doesn’t.

Grinning mischievously, she settles her hips firmly atop of Vanessa’s. Vanessa groans, high in her throat - Brooke leans down to swallow it in a kiss - and curls her toes into the loose bedsheets, a discarded silk robe at her feet when Brooke’s kisses begin to travel down her jaw, across her neck and over her collarbones.

She grazes her teeth subtly against the tattoos that adorn Vanessa’s chest, her upper arms, the miscellaneous florals that trickle down to her wrists. Her body is a dream, Brooke thinks, believes so even more when she pulls Vanessa’s shirt off of her frame, tosses it haphazardly across the room. Black and red grows in branches and buds off of Vanessa, and Brooke wants them to embrace her more than they already are, needs them to grow around her, embed themselves in her skin. 

Hovering over Vanessa, she smiles timidly.

“Sure?”. She checks, consent imperative despite Vanessa pulling her down by her neck, reaching for kiss after kiss.

“Sure-“. Vanessa whines.

“- _So_ sure, please”. She chokes.

Her eyes are welling with desperate tears that are one blink away from cascading down her cheeks, but Brooke shushes her delicately, connects their lips in a heated frenzy. Her back prickles in beads of sweat - Vanessa’s hair line is already dotted with warmth - and she reaches blindly for the corner of the thin duvet, pushes it completely off the bed, seeks a fraction of cool air to hit.

It doesn’t help much, but she finds that she doesn’t care when Vanessa is ignoring the momentum that Brooke thought she had set, and is gliding her hand between both of their bodies, pressing against her clit through the thin fabric of her underwear. Shaking her head, Brooke mumbles a defiant _no_.

Vanessa doesn’t listen.

“Ok, be like that”. Brooke gives in.

“ _Brooke_ -“. Vanessa attempts, is cut off by Brooke pressing her knee between Vanessa’s thighs.

Vanessa gasps - the pressure forms a pleasure that makes her jump, groan and suck the air out of Brooke’s mouth when she kisses her once more - and allows her head to thumb backwards against the mattress. She can feel her eyes rolling back into her head the longer Brooke presses, drags her lips across Vanessa’s and crawls her fingers up and down the outsides of her thighs. 

Clenching her legs, longing to keep Brooke in place and keep the pressure growing, Vanessa is forced to stifle a disgruntled moan of discontent. Brooke sits up, lifts her hips off of Vanessa’s and dislodges their entangled legs. She strokes her thumbs across Vanessa’s nipples that pucker beneath her touch, and reaches towards the bottom of the bed for Vanessa’s forgotten silk robe. Motioning towards the tie of said silk robe, Brooke arches an eyebrow.

“Can I?”. She smirks, watches Vanessa swallow deeply.

“You ‘wanna _tie_ _me_ _up_?”. Vanessa blinks.

“If you’d _listen_ , I wouldn’t have to”. Brooke nibbles at her bottom lip.

She observes Vanessa cautiously, contemplates taking back her words, her offer, before Vanessa’s nodding gleefully, her eyes darkening significantly. Brooke should have known, she tells herself; Vanessa’s eagerly manoeuvring her wrists above her head, positioning them next to the headboard so that Brooke is able to loop them with a practiced ease, tie the silk tactfully around them. 

Vanessa likes it.

“Better”. Brooke decides.

She finds herself unable to quite believe it - Vanessa’s spread out for her, visibly dripping through her underwear - and grunts in the back of her throat, crowds in to Vanessa’s face, eyes blown out and lips parted wantonly. She grins, spots the humour behind Vanessa’s expression in addition to the lust that clouds her features, the evident need for Brooke and Brooke’s fingers, her mouth, all of her.

Pressing a final kiss to Vanessa’s lips, Brooke begins her decent down her body.

Brooke licks across her chest, sucks on Vanessa’s painfully hard nipples until Vanessa is twitching, nails digging it to the palms of her own hands that remain restricted, latched to the metal frame of the headboard. Brooke watches her facial expressions in awe - the way that her eyes close instinctively, mouth gaping - and slinks between Vanessa’s thighs, parts them with both of her hands. 

Vanessa is wet. Her underwear is stuck to her, and Brooke has to peel it away when she tugs at the lace fabric around Vanessa’s hips, slips the garment down her legs and into the floor next to the bed. She’s delicate, but not overly so, wants to maintain an aspect of the dominance that she can tell Vanessa’s enjoying, thriving off of, and places a kiss to the insides of both of Vanessa’s thighs.

Her muscles twitch in response - Brooke is certain that Vanessa’s already so worked up that she’ll have her legs tightening around her head, crushing her ears within a matter of minutes - and she glances up towards her with the first stroke that her fingers make to Vanessa’s lips.

Gasping, Vanessa mumbles _yes, yes, yes_ , attempts to escape the circle of silk that keeps her hands from threading themselves into Brooke’s hair like they want to. She settles for conveying her needs with her eyes instead, stares pleadingly at Brooke as she licks a swipe up and across Vanessa’s clit, wraps her lips around it and sucks once, twice in fluid motion; Brooke decides that she doesn’t have it within her to tease.

Vanessa fights to keep her eyes open. Brooke works quickly - the buildup has drawn on for too long, she concludes, needs Vanessa to come on her tongue, her fingers - and slips two fingers inside of her with little resistance. Brooke has never had a woman this ready beneath her, as open and pliant for as Vanessa is with her heels that are digging into Brooke’s back, her chest that’s heaving ragged breaths.

“Oh my god-“. Vanessa whines.

“-Yes, _up_ ”. She directs.

Brooke understands.  

She rotates her wrist, crooks her fingers whilst maintaining the eye contact that she knows is pushing Vanessa closer and closer to the edge. She laps at Vanessa’s clit, massages her g-spot with the pads of her fingers until Vanessa is moaning continuously, nodding her head in a way that tells Brooke she’s going to come, needs to come.

“So close”. Vanessa squeaks.

Brooke grins into her. She maintains the motions that she knows are working for Vanessa, doesn’t relent until she’s telling Brooke that she’s _coming_ , is crushing Brooke’s head between her thighs that Brooke adores. She clenches, hot, tight and wet around Brooke’s skilled fingers, quivers and jolts when it becomes too much, too intense, pulls her hips up and off of Brooke’s fingers.

It makes Brooke beam with pride.

“Stop-“. Vanessa huffs.

“-Stop smiling like _that_ ”. She pants.

“Who can’t handle the heat now, _huh_?”. Brooke taunts.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Vanessa closes her eyes. She looks fucked out, Brooke thinks - it’s her flushed chest, damp forehead, content smile - and Brooke wants to capture it, ingrain the vision into her mind for as long as she’s able to keep it. She crawls back up the length of Vanessa’s body, allows her a moment of silence before she kisses her, bumps the tips of their noses together.

“Untie me-“. Vanessa smirks.

“-And we’ll see about that”.

Brooke does as she’s told. 

*****

They wake up the following morning to sun blaring through the curtains, and lounge around until midday.

Vanessa mentions wanting to take a walk around the resort, explore hidden corners of man made beaches and secluded pools that are hidden beneath the shade of canopies, umbrellas. Brooke agrees - it doesn’t take much, she’s accepted that Vanessa has her wrapped around her little finger - and begrudgingly drags herself out of the haven of their bed, makes her way to Vanessa’s en suite.

It looks the same as her own, all plain white tiles that appear clinical with teal blue accents. She observes them as she brushes her teeth with one of Vanessa’s spare toothbrushes, a strawberry toothpaste that she thinks is questionable, and counts them akin to sheep in her mind whilst she scrolls aimlessly through her phone.

She checks her messages. There aren’t many - one from her coworker, another two from Kameron that jokingly tells her to have _fun_ \- and she shuts the device off after seconds, decides that she doesn’t care when Vanessa strides into the bathroom in her silk robe that she’s neglected to tie, crowds Brooke in against the sink, the cluttered countertop.

“Let me guess-“. Vanessa starts.

“-There’s at least _one_ dumb as fuck text from your sister”. She banters.

“How’d ‘ya guess?”. Brooke chuckles.

She hands her phone over to Vanessa, directs her towards her messages where the two texts from Kameron are situated, and watches as Vanessa rolls her eyes. They’re predictable, she knows - Vanessa nods her head like she’s seen it all before - and frowns when Vanessa continues to tap away at her phone, shields the screen from Brooke’s eyes.

“I had the exact same thing from my girls, so _dumb_ ”. She snorts.

Vanessa locks Brooke’s phone, then, places it securely back down onto an empty space atop the counter. Brooke hums appreciatively, pulls Vanessa in for their ninth, tenth, eleventh kiss of the morning that tastes of strawberry toothpaste and the mango that Vanessa had eaten her way through for a makeshift breakfast. It’s soft; Brooke doesn’t want to let her go when Vanessa tells her that she’s going to get dressed for the day, unwinds her arms from Brooke’s waist.

“Oh!-“. Vanessa adds before she leaves the room.

“-I put my number in your phone by the way. Figured maybe you’ll be needing it when you get back to chilly ol’ Canada”. She smiles.

Grinning in response, Brooke nods. She continues her usual morning routine in the bathroom, brushes her hair and splashes her face with frigid, freezing water before applying a layer of sunscreen. She loads her phone whilst she does so, heads to her list of contacts where she spots Vanessa’s name; a single, capital _V_ followed by two orange hearts.

_I put my number in your phone. Figured maybe you’ll be needing it._

Brooke doesn’t doubt that she will - plans on texting Vanessa as soon as she lands.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I miss you-“. Vanessa confesses, light yet like a deadweight, a contrast that Brooke was unaware existed.
> 
> “-I want to see you again”. She adds before closing her eyes once more.
> 
> Brooke nods her head, though knows that Vanessa can neither see or hear it. She does it regardless - Brooke wants to see Vanessa again too, is desperate to be able to entwine their fingers once more - and is humming affirmatively, her heart swelling and contracting high in her throat.
> 
> “We’ll make it happen”. Brooke answers definitively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi hello! I was going to post this and the next part as one big ch but thought they’d work better broken up so here!! (Thank u nelsy for the encouragement) 
> 
> Thank you guys so so much for the lovely feedback on the first part of this, I didn’t expect that kind of reaction with a new ship at all!! 
> 
> With that said I hope you enjoy this one and as always feedback is greatly appreciated <3

Brooke flies back to Canada the following week with a heavy suitcase and a heavier heart.

She stumbles through the front door to her ground floor apartment less than two hours after landing, with all of the elegance of a bull, her body wrapped in the only sweaters that she had packed to take on vacation. She lugs her suitcase in behind her - it catches on her heels, she wants to scream - and disposes of it in the hallway. 

Her feet carry her through to her living room, all solid hardwood floors that are sturdy beneath her feet, freezing once she kicks off her shoes, tosses them to the corner of the room. The walls are white, stark and cold, and she glances around at them, wonders briefly why it’s never occurred to her to decorate when she collapses onto her leather couch, curls her body in on itself. 

Everything is too quiet. 

Being in the space feels unfamiliar - she knows it’s ludicrous, has only been gone for a day over two weeks - but can’t shake the feeling that clouds her body when she cranes her neck, twists her body in order to glance out of her living room window. It’s the only source of light in the enclosed four walls; she’d neglected to turn on the ceiling light or her far over desk lamp on her trek from the door to the couch.

The sun is rising. 

It’s a little after six in the morning, is the very first day of October, and Brooke focuses her eyes on the frigid condensation that’s beginning to form around her window pane, the light sheen of frost upon the windscreen of her jeep sitting in her driveway that tells her winter is coming, sooner rather than later.

She knows that it is. It doesn’t get as cold in Toronto as it does further up north, she understands, though is able to feel the chill that makes itself present in the air, the days that grow shorter yet stretch themselves out akin to elastic. She wishes that they wouldn’t, and outstretches her arm, presses the pads of her fingers to the glass of aforementioned window, watches in the low light as her skin turns white and then blue and then back to pink when she removes them. 

Grazing them across her wrist, the faint line of pale skin that had formed during the first week of her vacation due to a snuggly wrapped hair tie still present, Brooke sighs. Her head feels tight, wound up like the knitted fabric of her loose sweater, and she busies herself with tucking her toes beneath a velvet cushion on her couch, curls them into it in a futile attempt to get comfortable. 

It’s getting lighter outside. 

She watches the clock on her windowsill as it ticks forward for another fifteen minutes that pass like concrete through and hour glass, observes a number of her neighbours jumping in their cars and heading to work, bodies cloaked miserably in business suits. She doesn’t envy them - she hasn’t had a somewhat corporate job since she was in her early twenties, working part time at a call centre to help with college costs - and looks away when her phone vibrates in the pocket of her sweatpants. 

Fishing it out, she smiles. Her screen lights up with a message from Kameron, telling Brooke that she arrived home to her respective apartment in Nashville to be greeted by her roommate and their cat, eagerly awaiting her return with two cups of hot chocolate prepared. Brooke _almost_ envies her. Her living room is still silent, deathly so, but she sends off a message in response to Kameron, jokingly tells her not to get too comfortable before heading back to work the following day like she knows she’s due to. 

A shiver wracks her body as she sits unresponsive until the next fifteen minutes pass, somehow slower than the last, and she forms fists with her sweater that do little to warm her palms, stares at her phones black screen as if it’s going to open up, present Brooke with the secrets to the universe. It doesn’t, contrary to the silent prayer that she repeats in her mind, and she’s twisting uncomfortably, turning away from the window that’s fogging up from her stuffy breath. 

Brooke decides that she misses the warmth of her vacation. She doesn’t know why, except she does, misses the sun beating down on her already burning skin, the way that she would end up sweating within seconds of dragging herself out of her air conditioned room in the mornings. She pines for the humid air to return, pines for the longer days and shorter nights, longs for the cheap food and strong cocktails and - 

\- longs for _Vanessa_. 

It’s insanity. Brooke knows that the heightened proximity, the foreign territory to both of them unquestionably heightened the two weeks that they basked in each other’s presence for, but is unable to shake the fixation that’s situated in the back of her mind, hyper focused on the single message that Vanessa had sent her when she had landed the day before. 

Picking up her phone, Brooke reads over it. 

**_Vanessa_ : Just landed! Gonna go sleep for ten years, enjoy your last day in the sun B!**

Brooke had responded with a merely two hearts - orange ones, in-keeping with the contact name Vanessa had assigned herself - and wants to kick herself on reflection, wants to type out a belated response and coax all of the words out of Vanessa that she feels she’s able to, until the sun is fully risen; she’d stay awake for the whole day despite the jet jag if it meant talking to Vanessa. 

She decides that she will. 

Tapping her fingers rhythmically, unwittingly across the screen, Brooke composes a message. She types in a trance that borders on hypnotic, doesn’t realise that she goes seconds without blinking until her thumb has hit send, her body slinking across the couch beneath her in order to lay down. She faces the back of the couch, buries her arm in her shoulder; her sweater still smells like Vanessa’s vanilla shampoo. 

**_Brooke_ : Finally got back like half an hour ago too! Hope you’re well! **

Her choice of words make her feel ancient. She’s not, isfar from it - thirty two is younger than she’s ever felt - yet hope you’re well flashes behind her eyes, burns into her irises and through to the other side of her phone. It’s hot in her hands compared to the room surrounding her, yet is frigid in comparison to the feeling that washes over her when said phone is vibrating on her lap within the next handful of minutes, Vanessa’s contact showing two new messages. 

**_Vanessa_ : Hey u!!**

**_Vanessa_ : How u been since we tragically parted ways? :)**

Snickering, Brooke rolls her eyes. She’s able to imagine the sarcasm rolling in Vanessa’s voice, her mischievous grin that makes itself present more often than not, though part of her doesn’t think it’s much of an exaggeration. She laughs regardless, and resigns herself to doing what she’d always loathed others for; becoming absorbed in her phone screen, the single person at the other end of it. 

**_Brooke_ : I feel like I took the sun for granted **

**_Brooke_ : I want to go on another vacation **

She’s honest, maybe overly so, but finds herself not caring when Vanessa’s replying, this time within seconds, is conjuring up a smile on Brooke’s face that’s burning up, still pressed into the shoulder of her sweater. She glides her thumbs across the screen, toys with a myriad of possible replies in her head before settling on a quick summary that she doesn’t put much thought into; she figures it’s better not to send her mind tumbling into a whirlwind.

**_Vanessa_ : Great way to tell me u landed safely, idiot **

**_Brooke_ : I mean I thought the simple fact that I’m actually texting would have told you that but cool **

**_Vanessa_ : Shut up, go make a snowman or something **

**_Brooke_ : Canada feels colder than I remember **

**_Vanessa_ : HA the surface of the sun doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now does it??**

**_Brooke_ : That still sounds insufferable **

**_Brooke_ : I just want to not be boiling but not be freezing is that toO MUCH TO ASK FOR **

**_Vanessa_ : When u rubbed the genies lamp of life it only gave u three wishes girl **

**_Brooke_ : Does that not include a reasonable body temperature?**

**_Vanessa_ : When ur as hot as u are, nope **

**_Brooke_ : You know**

**_Brooke_ : I thought texting you would be more wholesome at 7am but apparently not **

**_Vanessa_ : I can be wholesome! **

Brooke doesn’t doubt that she can. Her thumbs hover, unknowing - she can’t think of a single response that would be suffice, one that would convey to Vanessa that she trusts her, irregardless of whatever - though doesn’t have to worry when Vanessa is typing again, is sending a second consecutive message that has Brooke’s heart thumping out of her already constrained chest. 

**_Vanessa_ : Missing you**

The two words hit her. They’re there, in bold black on her screen, and aren’t shortly typed like the remainder of Vanessa’s messages. They shake her to her core - Brooke wishes she could hear Vanessa’s voice speaking then to her, though makes do with her imagination - and have her thinking about up and leaving for Florida, about heat and warmth and Vanessa. 

**_Brooke_ : You have no idea **

**_Vanessa_ : I could guess **

Brooke feels like she’s been rendered speechless, wordless yet again. She lets out a quiet huff, allows her silence of her apartment to relish in her discomfort, and flinches when a tweeting bird squawks outside of her window. She shakes her head to herself, and decides that she’ll wait for Vanessa’s follow up message that she knows is coming because of the churning in her gut and the three dots that signal typing on her screen. 

**_Vanessa_ : Jesus Brooke u got me fucked up**

**_Brooke_ : Me?**

**_Vanessa_ : No, the pool boy who always dropped the noodles everywhere **

**_Vanessa_ : Of course u**

Exhaling raggedly, Brooke scrunches her eyes closed. She feels in over her head - she can’t remember somebody ever evoking emotions this intense in her chest after two weeks, knows that it sounds bizarre, unhinged - and focuses on centring her concentration. She’d be panicked, she knows, if it wasn’t for Vanessa’s blatant reciprocation, her equal measures of want that are evident in her words, and allows her thumbs to hit they keys in free fall, compose a string of messages that she knows are muddled.

**_Brooke_ : I feel like I dreamt you up **

**_Brooke_ : But in the best way you know? **

**_Brooke_ : And now I just hate that you’re unfairly far away from me **

**_Brooke_ : Jesus **

**_Brooke_ : Couldn’t you use one of your life genie wishes or whatever you called it to teleport yourself to Toronto **

It takes Vanessa a second to respond.

**_Vanessa_ : If only <3**

It has Brooke smiling to herself, big and unrestrained, and she busies herself with unpacking, reacquainting herself with her every day life. It takes her hours to do so, and she makes herself a bowl of cereal when the sun begins to set once more - it’s the only thing in her cupboards that’s survived her two week break - and eats it in the same corner of her couch that she’d spent an hour or so slumped on the morning prior.

She texts Vanessa in an easy back and forth throughout - it doesn’t surprise her, it comes as naturally as talking to her in person had - until the day has reached its end, and she’s crashing into bed a little after ten at night, thinking that she’s beaten the jet lag but not the ache in her heart that _whirs and whirs and whirs._

*****

They text for weeks. 

Brooke becomes glued to her phone, becomes the person she told herself she’d never be, and finds herself checking her phone for any missed notifications in her messages and all of her social media’s as soon as she opens her eyes in the mornings; Vanessa is a night owl by nature, stays up later than Brooke does most nights whether she’s touring or not. 

She smiles down at her phone more than she does the majority of people around her, and wants to kick herself on the numerous occasions that she’s been caught grinning to herself, teeth nestled into her bottom lip to avoid her simper stretching from ear to ear. Her friends have brought it up to her, feigning nonchalance - Nina had teased her about her _vacation hookup_ endlessly, Kameron sending the occasional mocking text - but Brooke’s living in her own world, is on cloud nine that Vanessa’s created just for the both of them.

It’s a lot. _Vanessa_ is a lot. She keeps Brooke on her toes, with the updates that she sends Brooke on a daily basis - photographs of her in different cities, things that go on backstage at her shows that she seems funny - but Brooke likes it. She’d go as far to say that she’s grateful for it, is grateful for the way that Vanessa had infiltrated her world at the drop of a hat, has maintained a constant presence over the last four or so weeks despite being busier than Brooke thinks she’s ever been in her life.

Brooke thinks that it’s laughable. She spends her own days the same way that she had for the past handful of years, teaching college students and her more advanced clients at the studio that she’s been head of for over half of her time working there. From nine until late each night, often after hours, she prances around the four mirrored walls, feet wrapped tightly in her pointe shoes as she recites ballet steps that she’s certain she could execute flawlessly in her sleep after so many years of practicing them. 

She doubts that she’d change it. She adores dance and the craft, the draining of energy that comes with it, and regrets nothing when her more aspirational students credit her with their desire to pursue a career much like she had; its rewarding, means that she dozes off into a slumber at the end of each day with a sense of accomplishment, of relief. 

They form a routine, until it _breaks_. 

It’s Halloween, a Wednesday that Brooke knows will pass uneventfully. She tucks a faux spider shaped hair clip into her dishevelled bun for the occasion, makes herself jump in freight with each glance that she catches of it in aforementioned mirrored studio walls throughout the day. Her students compliment her on it, query if she has plans for night to which she responds an honest no - she doesn’t, is too tired to entertain the idea - and arrives home by eight o’clock, cooks herself a meal of quick pasta and sauce. 

She eats it on her couch - it’s become a reoccurring theme lately - and blindly flicks through the television channels as she spoons the food into her mouth eagerly. The days worn her out, and the bowl is empty before she can settle on a show to provide her with some needed background noise as she works at typing up references for a number of her graduate students, short nails clacking against the keys. 

Her phone remains at her side throughout, though it doesn’t vibrate or illuminate itself once. It’s to be expected, Brooke knows - Vanessa had told her the morning prior that she was going out to celebrate the holiday with a number of her fellow dancers - and she’s content with knowing that Vanessa’s out there enjoying, letting her hair down for once, until it reaches one in the morning. 

Brooke’s tucked up in bed, her mind teetering back and forth between the cusp of reality and a deep sleep when her phone begins buzzing on the bedside table. She groans outwardly, wants nothing more than to fall into a slumber and wake up ten years later when her life has quietened down significantly, but then she’s sitting up, switching on her bedside lamp and reaching for her phone.

_Vanessa_. 

Vanessa is calling her. She’s phoning Brooke at seven minutes past one in the morning, and Brooke is gawking at the picture of Vanessa’s contact that she’d forgotten she’d set, a candid of her eating her way through what Brooke recalls was probably her third frosted cupcake. The phone in her had is ringing obnoxiously, is screaming to be answered, and Brooke swipes to do so without a second thought, is putting the call on loudspeaker with a press of her thumb. 

Her eyes are still bleary, are adjusting themselves to the newly lit room, but as the faint crackling on the other end of the phone line fills her ears, Brooke finds herself not caring. She can make out music playing faintly - doesn’t know what, has a vastly different taste in music to Vanessa - along with the woman in question humming along quietly.

She’s out of tune by a long way, though Brooke finds herself smiling subconsciously, clutching her heavy duvet to her chest as Vanessa continues murmuring softly to herself, presumably unaware that Brooke has picked up her call, is listening in on a side of Vanessa that she knows is often kept muted. Brooke clears her throat, knows that Vanessa wouldn’t be able to hear it over the volume of her music as well as her own voice, and then she’s speaking, grasping all of Vanessa’s attention with a exhaustion effected breath. 

“Hey”. Brooke exhales. 

The music stops. Vanessa’s humming stops. Brooke’s whole world comes to a halt, ceases spinning on its axis until Vanessa squeals, picks up her phone and presses it as close to her ear as she feels is possible. She wants Brooke _closer closer closer_ , so close that she can whisper down the line to her, and does so with her fingertips pressed to her lipstick slick lips.

“ _Brooke_!-“. Vanessa hypes, before lowering her voice. 

“-You picked up”. She sighs. 

Brooke feels her chest tighten. Hugging her duvet with all of the strength that she possesses, Brooke hums affirmatively. She can hear the shock, the surprise in Vanessa’s voice, and hurries to reassure her, fix her with tender words and a gentle tone; Vanessa appreciates her endlessly. 

“Of course I did-“. Brooke soothes. 

“-How are you? Are you ok?”. She questions, concern evident in her voice. 

Listening attentively, Brooke hears Vanessa grumble a yeah, followed by a shuffle and a crinkle. Brooke can feel the smile growing on her face, her lips upturning in a drowsy smile. She allows her eyes to slip closed as Vanessa begins talking once more, her teeth crunching through what Brooke assumes are a bag of chips. 

“Jus’ got home-“. Vanessa waffles. 

“-In bed, got these chips, I think they’re like, barbecue or some shit but they’re _super_ good”. She concludes.

Brooke snorts inelegantly. She can picture Vanessa, sprawled out across her bed that Brooke knows it draped in red sheets thanks to numerous video calls and pictures, descriptions that Vanessa as given her. She can envision her chomping her way through the bag of said chips, wiping off crumbs on her legs and mumbling drunkenly to herself like Brooke knows that she is, tipsy on tangy orange and tequila. 

“Did you have a good night?”. Brooke asks, Vanessa responding with a garbled grunt.

“I guess, _kinda_ ’-“. Vanessa drawls. 

“-Everybody left to go get some dick but like, I don’t want any dick right now, jus’ want-”. She trails off. 

Brooke is laughing. The amusement is prevalent in the way that Vanessa phrases her words, the way that she loses track of what she had been saying before she’s even able to reach the end of her sentence. She sighs in defeat, mumbles something about wanting to _see_ Brooke, a video call, and then Vanessa’s face is on her screen, live and real and _there_. 

“Hm, there you are”. Vanessa beams. 

Taking in the image of her, Brooke curls her toes. Her caramel hair - she’s lightened it since Brooke had last seen her in person, Brooke thinks it suits her - is fanned out around her head that’s propped up against a stack of pillows. Her hand is moving back and forth between the bag of chips that Brooke can tell are in fact barbecue even in the low light of Vanessa’s bedroom. The walls of said room are a pale cream, and compliment Vanessa’s frame that’s clothed in a baggy white shirt, her hair and makeup still near immaculate. 

“Hi-”. Brooke grins, slinking further down her mattress. 

“-Keep talking”. She coaxes. 

“What was I sayin’?”. Vanessa swallows, cocks an eyebrow quizzically.

“Dick”. Brooke deadpans. 

Clicking her fingers together, Vanessa nods her head. She cackles, and so does Brooke, both of their screens lit up in grins that they can’t quell, even when Vanessa bites into another handful of chips, talks around them loosely. Brooke keeps her eyes trained on Vanessa’s, glassy and blown out - it’s almost real if she focuses hard enough - and places her phone on her bedside table, propped up by a linen scented candle so that she’s able to face the camera, hands free. 

“ _Oh_! Yeah, dick-“. Vanessa realises. 

“-No, don’t want it”. She finishes. 

“ _No_?”. Brooke laughs.

She knows what Vanessa is insinuating by the haze in her eyes. 

“I mean, I’d take it if it was _yours_ ”. Vanessa grins. 

Staring down the camera, she bites her lip. Brooke thinks that it’s the best sight she’s ever seen - Vanessa has crumbs on her chin, is sprawled out ethereally - and she shifts so that she’s able lie down more comfortably, her legs tucked up to her chest. Vanessa’s gaze doesn’t waver; she’s persistent, and is mumbling about how she’s out of chips before her focus shifts back to Brooke Brooke Brooke.

“Yeah? Tell me more about that”. Brooke smirks.

She’s half joking, half isn’t, and purses her lips as she awaits Vanessa’s response. It comes in the form of the woman shaking her head, sitting up straight against her headboard and tossing her hair behind her shoulders. She grins at Brooke, flicks her tongue across her lips, smudges her fire red lipstick in the process. 

Brooke wants to ruin it even further.

“I _kinda_ ’ jus’ want you to sit on my face though”. Vanessa admits. 

Cheeks flushing and thighs pressing together, Brooke chuckles. She’s not embarrassed, is far from it, but cowers under Vanessa’s scrutiny that’s piercing her through to the bone even though there’s a screen and over a thousand miles between the both of them; Vanessa has her feeling like they’re in the same room, skin to skin. 

“Baby-“. It slips past Brooke’s lips before she’s able to stop it. 

“-Did you drink a bit too much?”. She bites back a smirk. 

“ _Brooklyn_ -“. Vanessa whines. 

“-I’m trying to tell ‘ya how much I want to fuckin’ eat you out right now”. She exasperates. 

Brooke freezes. The sound of her name tumbling out of Vanessa’s mouth is enough to shock her back to the moment, eyes heavy with sleep and body aching, twitching, shuffling. _Brooklyn_. She’s never told Vanessa her full name - though she knows that it’s not a hard one to work out, admittedly - and is raising an eyebrow in question, burying herself further into her bed stacked high with pillows and cushions, her thick duvet and a number of additional blankets. 

“Brooklyn, _huh_?”. Brooke teases. 

“Don’t play dumb”. Vanessa retaliates with a grin. 

“How’d you work that one out?”. Continues Brooke.

Rolling her eyes, Vanessa shrugs her shoulders. Brooke watches her baggy shirt as it slips, exposes one of her said shoulders and pools around her upper arms. Vanessa moves to readjust it, but gives in when the garment refuses to stay put. Brooke is barely able to make out the defined lines of her tattoos that she has engrained into her mind in the low light, but knows that they’re there, along with an even layer of glitter that Vanessa’s applied; she’s glittering and Brooke wants to drink her up. 

“Kameron told me”. Vanessa reasons.

Brooke blinks dumbly.

“You talk to Kameron?”. She tilts her head.

“Sometimes”. Vanessa nods. 

“ _Oh_ ”. Brooke settles.

Grinning, Vanessa sticks her tongue out mockingly. Brooke laughs, can’t help doing so despite how her rib cage feels like it’s collapsing in on itself - Vanessa talks to Kameron, Kameron talks to Vanessa - and focuses on Vanessa’s teeth that glint against the light of her bedside lamp, her eyebrows that twist and contort. Brooke thinks that she’s lovely, the loveliest, and has visions of Vanessa integrating herself into her family like she knows that she could, with ease.

It’s a lot. 

“We don’t bitch about ‘ya _too_ much, promise”. Vanessa adds, lightly. 

Her eyes scream reassurance, and Brooke is thankful that she’d added to the conversation despite feeling like it had ended, her sense of certainty withering noticeably. It grounds Brooke more than she thought a single sentence could have, and they continue talking, laughing, reminiscing until an hour has passed and Brooke’s phone tells her that it’s nearing quarter past two in the morning. 

They speak of Vanessa’s short break - Trixie Mattel’s tour recommences in a week, she has until then to reward herself with some downtime in her hometown - and about Brooke’s classes that Vanessa tells her she’ll come to observe, one day. The thought fills Brooke with warmth, much like it does Vanessa, and then things are quiet. 

Brooke is able to hear Vanessa’s even, heavy breathing through her loudspeaker, focuses on the sight of the even rise and fall of her chest. She thinks that she’s sleeping, has succumbed to the weights of slumber that Brooke can tell have been threatening to drag her under for the better part of the last half an hour, and regrets not reminding Vanessa to leave herself painkillers and a glass of water on her bedside table for the morning, until Vanessa is stirring. 

Her eyes are chocolate whirlpools staring directly into Brooke’s. 

“I miss you-“. Vanessa confesses, light yet like a deadweight, a contrast that Brooke was unaware existed. 

“-I want to see you again”. She adds before closing her eyes once more. 

Brooke nods her head, though knows that Vanessa can neither see or hear it. She does it regardless - Brooke wants to see Vanessa again too, is desperate to be able to entwine their fingers once more - and is humming affirmatively, her heart swelling and contracting high in her throat. 

“We’ll make it happen”. Brooke answers definitively.

Vanessa smiles softly, and mumbles a faint _sleep well_ before reaching clumsily to end the call. 

Both count it as a promise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m now on tumblr @ silverhytes after a url change !!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke’s unable to pin point it. It’s not a look that anybody’s ever given her before - she’s had women look at her like they want her, want her to fuck them - but she’s never had somebody with eyes as intense as Vanessa’s looking back at her. It’s startling; Vanessa blinks and it screams love, maybe, Brooke hopes that it does, as well awe when Brooke blinks back.
> 
> She threads her hand loosely in Vanessa’s hair, scratches her short nails across Vanessa’s scalp like she knows that she enjoys. The action has Vanessa keening, humming in satisfaction, and Brooke continues the menial ministrations for as long as Vanessa remains content. It lasts until it doesn’t, and Vanessa’s lifting her head once more, connecting her lips with Brooke’s before Brooke has time to contemplate it.
> 
> “Brooklyn”. She breathes into the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I’m back again! This chapter has been my favourite to write so far, and I hope you enjoy it! I don’t know how many more parts there will be to this, I’m just kind of seeing where it goes, but it’s all a journey! 
> 
> Special thanks to theartificialdane over on tumblr for the inspiration for a lot of this, and mattedzamo for always being my gay cheerleader!! 
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated <3

It’s another month before anything _does_ happen. 

Brooke works through November, makes it to the beginning of December when the temperatures reach lows that she’d forgotten existed. Ice paves her driveway each morning before she heads to the studio, and the sidewalks are slippery beneath her feet when she arrives before the sun fully rises and leaves late at night when everything’s dark, dreary.

She dances and dances and dances, throws herself head first into her craft that her students appreciate wholeheartedly, are thankful for as they have their respective showcases looming upon them. Brooke is a good coach; she sometimes thinks that she was made to teach, pass on her expertise even if it drains her body more than it used to a handful of years or so ago, her limbs aching with each plié and sauté that she has to repeat, arabesques that make her leg muscles twinge. 

It’s something that she adores, and doubts that she’d change, but when it’s a Sunday and she arrives home before the sun sets - it’s a rare occurrence, she barely recognises her home in the day light - she allows herself to reflect. She’s still eating her dinners in the same corner of her couch that she’s taken a liking too since arriving back from her vacation in September, and has noticed said couch dipping further with each day that drags by. 

Her surroundings are growing monotonous. 

She thinks about migrating to another corner, briefly, but then she curls her legs up under her body, presses her head into the back of the couch as she picks up her phone, searches through her contacts until she spots Kameron’s name. Her thumb is pressing call before she has time to comprehend her actions, and the shrill ring of the phone is beating against her eardrums, causing her to recoil and furrow her brows in discomfort.

Kameron picks up after four rings. 

“This better be good, I have a very important date with my couch and pizza in like, ten minutes”. Kameron banters immediately. 

Snickering, Brooke hums. She thinks that it’s important, probably, believes that Kameron will grant her the space that she needs to let her thoughts roam free, vent openly in to her otherwise hollow home. Her mind has been preoccupied - she’s become more predictable than she told herself she ever would, a woman named _Vanessa_ harbouring the majority of her concentration - and she wants to kick herself when she spots the clock on her windowsill that tells her it’s nearing nine in the evening; she still has a routine to prepare for the following morning. 

“I think it’s important, but I already know you’re about to judge the fuck out of me _so_ ”. Brooke drawls.

Trailing off, Brooke pouts melodramatically as Kameron groans audibly. She’s joking, Brooke knows that she is, from the way that she adds a faint giggle before beginning to speak, can be heard shuffling around on the other end of the phone line. Brooke listens intently, finds herself unable to predict Kameron’s choice of words despite her best efforts.

“God damn it, Brooke”. She dramatises. 

Brooke can hear the realisation, the knowing in her voice, and wants to kick herself, again, for even beginning to think that Kameron wouldn’t be able to see right through her, through the Perspex walls that she’s wrapped herself in. Kameron’s always been the intuitive one out of the both of them, and it’s why when she breathes out her response, it sounds lacklustre and petulant.

“What?”. Brooke queries, feigns innocence. 

“You’re in _deep_ , aren’t you?”. Kameron accuses. 

She is. 

Brooke feels like she’s sinking, is drowning, has already drowned in the grand scheme of things, in the feelings that have spread across her chest like overgrown branches and vines. She feels buried in everything Vanessa, her ways and her attitude along with the undivided attention that she’s able to provide Brooke with merely through messages and phone calls that have remained a constant in her life since arriving back from vacation.

A part of her doesn’t remember Vanessa not being a click away. Her head feels like a pinball machine at the thought; commitment has never been her forte, long distance even less so, but finds herself wanting to promise Vanessa all that the universe has to offer with its stars that don’t shine half as bright as she wishes they would and the crumbling earth that she walks upon. 

“Marianas trenches deep-“. Brooke decides.

“-Centre of the _earth_ deep”. She doesn’t think it’s an over exaggeration.

Kameron huffs - Brooke can picture her facial expression, teasing yet loving - and clicks her tongue against her teeth. Brooke mumbles a mocking gross, and lifts herself from the couch, trudges to the kitchen where she puts her phone on loudspeaker, perches it upon one of the surfaces whilst she stumbles to the fridge. She searches for her already brewed pot of coffee, and fills a glass to the brim with it. It’s gone in seconds. 

“You really don’t like making things easy for yourself”. Kameron states. 

“Tell me about it”. Brooke knows that she doesn’t. 

There’s a pause. She can hear Kameron thinking, buffering, wondering how to further the conversation when Brooke’s mind is on a one track journey to Vanessa, and the iced coffee that she’s already pouring herself more of. She’s drank half of it down before Kameron responds shortly, and leans her back against her kitchen countertop; it’s a welcome change to the slump of her couch. 

“Well, how is she?”. Kameron settles, prefaces her words carefully. 

Brooke smiles softly. 

“Wonderful, the _best_ -“. She grins easily.

Chewing into her bottom lip, hands nursing her glass, Brooke casts her eyes across the kitchen. She’s rarely in said room, with the exception of making herself a breakfast or dinner, and gazes sympathetically to her array of houseplants next to her sink that she’s neglected to water for what she knows has been too long. She makes a mental note to fix them, buy new ones if she has to, and picks up her phone, switches off the loudspeaker and heads back to her living room with her cold coffee in hand. 

“-She told me you guys talk sometimes”. Brooke adds. 

“Mhm, _yeah_ , we text now and again”. Kameron confirms.

Brooke still finds it baffling. She knows that Kameron and Vanessa have a bond of their own, somehow - they’d met in friendly passing whilst on vacation, had had a breakfast or two together with Brooke - and can’t shake the thought that’s been playing on her mind of Vanessa seamlessly weaving her life with Brooke’s. 

“About what?”.Brooke questions, mind reeling.

“You, mostly-“. Kameron states hesitantly.

It’s easy to pick up on the uncertainty in her voice - Kameron’s not a good liar, never has been - and Brooke presses the fingers to her free hand to her forehead, smoothes out the lines that have formed due to her persistent frowning. Kameron sighs on the other end of the line, fills Brooke’s ears with static and the notion that she’s not quite done talking; Brooke doesn’t mind it. 

“-She’s just as into you, I’d say it’s a pretty even playing field”. She continues.

Brooke blinks stoically. 

“You think?”. Her eyes widen. 

She’s positive that Kameron wants to kill her, at least send her tumbling off of a cliffs edge. Brooke doesn’t blame her - she’d want to put an end to herself too if she could see herself from another’s perspective - and drops her head to the back of the couch. Kameron groans once more, lets Brooke know that her assumptions had been correct, and bites her tongue. 

“Mom and dad lied to you when they told us _you_ were the smart one, you know that?”. Teases Kameron. 

Brooke allows her the satisfaction. 

“ _God_ , it’s just, I don’t know”. Brooke stutters. 

Humming in understanding, Kameron mumbles her reassurance. She feels like she knows where Brooke is coming from - she’s unable to imagine loving somebody as intensely as she knows Brooke does from as far away, regardless of whether Brooke’s admitted it to herself or not - and seeks to comfort her, let her know that _it’s ok, it’s fine, it’s ok._

“You miss her?”. Kameron tries.

“All the time-“. Brooke barely has to think about her response. 

“-We text and call a lot but we’re always so far away from each other and like, this week she’s _actually_ in Canada for once but I have no idea where and at this point I’m too afraid to ask because it’s just going to be her telling me she’s on the opposite coast and it’s going to-“. Brooke’s voice grows unsteady, and she cuts herself off.

She breathes deeply, hones in on the uneven rise and fall of her chest. She feels like she’s losing it, maybe already has lost it, and is blinking away the frustration, tears that form but don’t fall. Brooke won’t allow them to; Kameron is still addressing her, telling her to breathe, joking that she needs a drink or _five_ before grounding herself once more. 

“Hey-“. Kameron asserts.

“-You don’t know that”. She sighs.

“No-“. Brooke shakes her head to herself.

“-But _strangely_ , I don’t think the universe is done fucking me in the ass yet”. She chuckles, dark and pitiful. 

Brooke tells herself that humour is the best therapy. It’s always been instilled in her that laughter is good, joy is imperative, and she tries to embody said beliefs in each and every one of her actions, even if she’s being torn to shrewd unknowingly, has become as wilted as she house plants in her kitchen. Kameron understands, seemingly, and is laughing on her own accord shortly after, leaves Brooke wondering why Kameron ever decided to leave for Nashville. 

“I’ll personally tell the universe to fuck somebody else if it means you get your happily ever after”. Kameron snickers.

“Please-“. Brooke snorts.

“-I swear I’m about to start touring again just to have the off chance of running into her in some dive bar in Kentucky if I have to”. She chuckles, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hold it out, Brooke”. Kameron repeats.

Brooke’s going to. She couldn’t not when she acknowledges the flutter in her stomach that appears just at the sheer thought of Vanessa, the way her heart has tightened, swollen in her throat consistently whenever Vanessa messages her to tell her about the burrito that she had for lunch, or calls her merely to tell Brooke she loves her bushy eyebrows. Brooke feels like a broken record; she’s been on a loop for too long, knows that she needs to press pause, eject. 

“This is where you tell me things will work out, isn’t it?”. Brooke asks. 

“ _Duh_ -“. Kameron thinks that it’s obvious.

“-they will though, you’ll see”. Brooke can hear the smirk in her voice.

It’s evident, and she smiles, relieved, jumps at the sound of Kameron’s door bell ringing in the background. It’s a shriek of a noise, and Kameron tells her that it’s her pizza - her roommate Asia is waiting patiently for her in the kitchen - and bids a begrudging good night to Brooke before she hangs up with a _love you_ , leaves Brooke to her own devices once more. 

She drags herself to bed half an hour or so later, remains secluded in her isolated cabin of almost comfort, three blankets and her fleecy dressing gown. She lays there unmoving, content with listening to the minimal traffic outside until it’s midnight, and her phone screen is illuminating, the object vibrating twice consecutively on her beside table. Lifting it to her eyes, Brooke grins, this time unrestrained. 

**_Vanessa_ : Wow u really weren’t joking when u said Canada was cold holy shit **

**_Vanessa_ : Hope u sleep well, rest easy <3 **

Brooke softens - her body melts into her mattress, turns to puddles amongst her pillows - and types out her response to Vanessa with eyes scrunched tightly against the brightness of the screen, her aching head telling her to _sleep sleep sleep_. She does so, and places her phone back down onto her bedside table, stretches out like an elastic band.

**_Brooke_ : Wrap up and stay warm, take care <3**

She drifts off blanketed by warmth, despite the snow that’s beginning to fall beyond her four walls.

*****

Waking the following morning, Brooke feels refreshed.

Her phone call with Kameron is still fresh in her mind - hold it out hold it out hold it out - and she springs out of bed five minutes before her alarm sounds, showers briskly and brushes her teeth by the time that the sun even breaks through the cusp of the horizon. She eats breakfast, a rare occurrence; most days she barely makes it to the studio on time, settles for stomaching a cereal bar on her thirty minute drive into the city. 

She takes the scenic route to work for once, when she leaves her house twenty minutes before she’s due to. Traipsing through her recollections, she’s unable to remember when she last did so, and basks in the sight of the the dimly lit sun reflecting off of defrosting puddles along the roads, the frost littered fields that she coasts past in addition to grand, statuesque cedar trees. 

All of it is a vision. Brooke’s looking at the world like it’s being kind to her, for once - she knows it’s never unkind, more unfair - and sends a smile to the sky, prays that the universe catches it, converts it into a stroke of luck that it may divert her way. She doubts it will, but doesn’t care when she’s arriving at the studio ten minutes early, her ears still ringing with tracks from the radio that she had blasted until she’d pulled up in the parking lot. 

She strides inside the studio with confidence - the only person that’s arrived before her is Monét, the hip hop instructor that Brooke’s come to appreciate over the years, her company nothing but thrilling - and makes her way to her office. She discards her bag packed to the brim with dance gear onto her swivel chair, works quickly to remove her layers upon layers of sweaters and coat, leaves her body clothed in her black leotard; the plunging neckline is creased and Brooke twiddles to restore it to its former state. 

Her feet carry her back out to the main corridor once she’s donned her pointe shoes, slicked her hair back into a makeshift bun, and she hurries to her respective allocated studio when she spots her eldest students begin to pile in. Brooke greets them with eager smiles, snickers nonchalantly to herself as they each take turns in attempting to stuff their overly prepared bags into their lockers, relenting when their thick, padded jackets end up folded over the backs of collapsible chairs situated in the corner of the room.

It happens every time. It’s something that Brooke no longer bats an eyelid at - she’s used to her students and their quirks that she doubts will ever end - and as she waits patiently, limbs stretching as she hangs off of the barre, she mulls over the varying aspects of her still yet to be choreographed routine in her head. The students aren’t expecting it to be a complete piece, but Brooke knows them, knows their capabilities, and contemplates consulting Monét for a contrasting perspective; Brooke knows she’s still toying with backing tracks in her own office. 

There’s not enough time. 

The students are ready, waiting - they’re more put together than Brooke could have ever _dreamed_ of being at twenty two, more so than she could have now at thirty two - and they stand proudly with their feet in first position, ankles pointed neatly. Brooke is proud of them, regardless of her focus that threatens to waver with the realisation that she’s not as hopeful as she had been upon rising the morning prior, and begins the class with a warm up that she forgets as soon as it ends. 

Her day continues monotonously. She feels robotic, programmed by unknown forces, and catches herself in the mirrored walls looking defeated, eyes blown out on multiple occasions. Her students notice - they’re attentive, of course they do, she thinks - and sits herself down on her lunch break that doesn’t last for a second over twenty minutes, chugs down a bottle of orange juice with the knowledge that she’s lost. 

She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t think she’d know if it came and slapped her across the face, dented her cheekbones and pierced through her eyes. She’s in a daze, and remains that way until it’s reached after hours once more, the last remaining dregs of students packing their bags slowly, talking to Brooke about nothing and everything that she loses track of. 

Somebody is taking to her.

“ _Brooke_?”. 

Brooke is tapping her nails on the barre. 

“ _Brooke_?”. 

She keeps tapping.

“Oh my _god_ , have you been smoking my shit again? Wake up, girl”. 

Brooke’s head cranes to attention. 

It’s Monét. She’s there, in Brooke’s face, leaning against the barre like she owns it, and Brooke jumps visibly, clutches a palm to her chest to calm her stuttered breathing. Monét’s looking up at her - Brooke knows she’s concerned, she’s been hovering around Brooke’s studio more than her own for the majority of the day - and pushes herself up onto the tips of her toes in order to press down on Brooke’s shoulders. 

The action is grounding, brings her halfway back down to earth that she’s been stranded miles above for days, weeks, months, and she smiles timidly in gratitude. Monét nods her head slowly, looks more unsure than Brooke is able to recall seeing her, possibly ever, and waves her goodbyes to a gaggle of students that slump exhaustedly towards the exit. Brooke waves, too, feels the muscles in her arms tensing at the simple action, and glances meekly back towards Monét when said door clicks shut behind them. 

“So-“. Monét huffs. 

“-What or _who’s_ gotten into you?”. She questions. 

Brooke doesn’t have the energy, simply shrugs. 

“You sound like my sister”. Brooke grunts, wipes stray droplets of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. 

“Good! It’s my job, can’t have ‘ya running around this place looking like a lost sheep”. Monét chuckles. 

Brooke knows that she’s right, though doesn’t want to admit it when Monét looks on with a smug smile, one that reigns across the entirety of her face, is embodied in her whole being, and shrinks under the scrutiny. She drags herself away from the barre, trudges to the single row of chairs in the back of the room and sits, collapses, folds in on herself. Monét follows wordlessly, hands Brooke an icy bottle of water that’s met with a cold thanks.

“Jesus-“. Brooke takes a sip. 

“-Have I really been _that_ bad?”. She regrets the question as soon as it leaves her mouth.

“You’ve just been, y’know-“ Monét gestures vaguely.

“-Preoccupied?”. She suggests.

Brooke has. It’s been obvious to anybody, everybody who knows her or even doesn’t know her - she’s certain mere acquaintances have gathered as much - and nods her head in agreement. Monét is looking at her sympathetically, like she wants to envelope Brooke in an embrace that’ll crush her bones, have her more sore than she already is, but Brooke is done, is standing, is manoeuvring to assist the three girls that are left in rolling up their dance mats. 

“Look-“. Brooke addresses, her words to Monét who’s slowly retreating out of the room. 

“-I’ll snap myself out of it just, give me some time or, _whatever_ , I’ll get there”. She asserts. 

Monét eyes her suspiciously, but relents when Brooke stares her down, gives her a warning glance which tells Monét not to push it further. She listens - Brooke didn’t believe that she would, she’s Monét, rambunctious and unrelenting - and is out of the room before Brooke’s able to roll up a single mat, is left grasping feebly at the ends of one.

Brooke wants the day to be over. 

Her body hurts and her mind aches, her thoughts churning at a speed that she’s unable to comprehend. She watches her students laugh, smile, and grins back at them; she’s not about to be rude as well as unprofessional around them, figures that she’s already been enough of an overcast on the studio throughout the day as it is, and tells them to have a good night, that she’ll see them on Wednesday when they totter out of the studio. 

It’s Brooke’s queue to crumble.

She walks back towards the barre, grips it with all of the strength that she possesses, and locks eyes with herself in the mirror. Her eyes are blank, hollow, two icebergs that don’t melt under the scorching lights, only grow more frigid as she knits her eyebrows together. The faint crows feet that she can see developing as the days pass tell her that she’s thirty two, is established and successful and functioning, but the pulses in her chest condemn her to being a teenager once more, remind her of the fact that she’s infatuated, distracted, in _love_. 

The thought hits her like a train. 

Brooke wants to tear out her hair strand by strand, doesn’t care if it’s an overreaction to the stampede of butterflies stabbing at her lungs, her stomach, and presses her hands to her eyes in defeat. She presses and presses and presses, works to destroy the thunderous voices that are arguing amongst themselves in her mind, and then she’s lifting her gaze once more, swooping her eyes lazily across the studio space with half lidded vision and-

_Vanessa_. 

Her world stops. 

_Vanessa_.

It had barely been moving in the first instance - her existence has stagnated, become predictable in every sense of the word - and the shock hits her harder than the previous train. It’s a punch to the throat, a targeted attack on every fibre of her body that’s shaking, trembling, overcome with both nerves as well as euphoria, and Brooke’s spinning on her heel, restrictive pointe shoes an after thought of an after thought. 

Vanessa is _there_.

She’s there, in person, is real, standing in the doorway to Brooke’s studio with her caramel hair and cold hands, rubbing themselves together for warmth. She’s wrapped in what looks like every layer that she owns - Brooke still doubts it’s enough to protect her from the temperatures outside - in addition to a fluffy, faux fur coat that she has zipped up to her chin. 

Brooke blinks, numb. 

Vanessa is looking at her, smiling with all of the certainty in the world and yet none at all, the tip of her nose rivalling the shade of her frost bitten lips and red painted fingernails. She looks tiny, vulnerable, the definition of a Floridian outside of her comfort zone; Brooke wants to protect her, fold her arms around her tight, tighter, until she knows that Vanessa is real.

“Vanessa?”. Her voice breaks, posture slumping. 

“Hey, B”. Vanessa croaks.

Brooke wants to cry. She _does_ cry, allows the pent up tears to fall down her blushing, still sweaty cheeks as she strides on long legs over to Vanessa, her Vanessa, folds their bodies together into origami that she wants to treasure, place high up on a shelf, a pedestal. Vanessa’s arms are around her, squeezing Brooke so tightly that Brooke thinks she might shatter, give way beneath the pressure of it all, end up in a pile of dismantled shards on the floor. 

Vanessa’s breathing is shaky - Brooke strokes her hands up and down the length of her back to the best of her abilities with the tones of fabric covering her small frame - and she’s laughing openly as soon as Brooke exhales a sigh of relief. The tension is there but it’s not, and they’re both mumbling, Brooke’s nose buried in the mass of Vanessa’s hair that peaks out from beneath her bobble hat. 

“Oh my god-“. Brooke hiccups.

“-You“. She halts, Vanessa cutting her off.

“Yeah-”. Vanessa grins. 

“-Hi” she adds, pulls away a minuscule amount so that their faces are inches apart. 

“What the _fuck_ is going on”. Brooke blurts. 

The grin upon her face is splitting her cheeks - her eyes are cloudy, they cross when Vanessa leans up to bump their noses together, red cold meeting blue warmth - and she repeats the question to herself; _what the fuck is going on_ ; she doesn’t know, though doesn’t care when Vanessa is grinning right back at her, her eyelashes brushing against Brooke’s cheeks. 

“You’re trippin’”. Vanessa mumbles jokingly. 

Her response makes Brooke cackle. She’s wrapping her arms tighter around Vanessa’s body, squeezing with the same pressure that Vanessa’s gripping her, as if she’s going to vanish into thin air, disappear out of the room before she has the opportunity to hold Brooke, kiss her and love her like she wants to, needs to. Brooke adores it - she barely has time to acknowledge the sweat that’s still clinging to her skin, her hair that’s a dishevelled mess - and falls into Vanessa.

Vanessa falls right back. Brooke makes it easy, easy for Vanessa to feel comfortable arriving unannounced, easy for her to withstand the months that they’ve been apart and even easier to embrace her once more, like they’d only parted ways hours prior. Brooke takes her back into the folds of her existence as easily as Vanessa had hoped and wished that she would, and is mumbling something about _cold_ , and _sorry_ , is guiding Vanessa to her office with their hands interlinked. 

“You have a damn office?”. Vanessa giggles. 

She throws herself down onto the miniature couch in the corner of said room, drags Brooke down with her, moulds them into the contours or the worn in suede. She nudges Brooke’s knees with her own, stretches her legs across Brooke’s thighs and nuzzles into her shoulder. Brooke feels the heat in her cheeks rise at Vanessa’s actions - they’re simple, nonchalant, she wants to kick her body for being responsive - and shrugs loosely in response to Vanessa’s question.

“With the amount of time I spend here I’d be suing if I didn’t”. She presses her lips together in a chuckle. 

Vanessa nods her head in what Brooke assumes is agreement, and splays one hand flat on Brooke’s chest. She can feel it heaving, and presses the tips of her fingers into Brooke’s collarbones that are glowing, shifting beneath her skin, and doesn’t relent until Brooke offers her a timid smile, exhales a quiet thanks that Vanessa doesn’t miss.

“You good?”. Vanessa questions, doesn’t stop the faint hint of a smirk from appearing on her face.

“Yeah-“. Brooke clears her throat. 

“-Just, you’re real”. She’s baffled.

Vanessa’s looking at her with all of the same energy that Brooke has exerted thinking about her for months, eyes gleaming even with her bobble hat squishing down her eyebrows snuggly, her coat making Brooke want to keep her warm for as long as possible, shield her from the conditions outdoors. Her eyes don’t leave Brooke’s, never stray even as she tilts her head into the back of the couch with a giggle, nods her head yes.

“Am I though?”. Vanessa teases.

“Shut up-“. Brooke groans, smiling.

“-Jesus-“. She cuts herself off once more.

“-Do you want a drink? I kind of want a drink”. Brooke huffs. 

It’s stupid - they’re both there, where they’ve wanted to be since they last saw each other, laughing - but Brooke can’t shake the nerves that churn in her stomach, the anxiety that’s bubbling, overflowing from her mind. Vanessa’s on the same page, she can tell, from the occasional tap of her nails on her own knee, the way that her teeth dig into the inside of her cheek. Brooke feels for her; she doesn’t pretend to understand the shock that must be running rampant in her body at the unfamiliar space, unfamiliar country.

Nodding her head with a sigh of relief, Vanessa slouches. Brooke responds as quickly as she believes is humanly possible in her current state, and shifts to reach beneath the couch for the bottle of wine that she’s had stashed since the Christmas prior. It had been a gift from Monét at their staff party, and she’s neglected to take it home or crack it open on the job, has never liked the idea of room temperature wine by herself in her office until Vanessa had shown up out of the blue, blended into said office like she was meant to be there, a part of the furniture. 

Twisting open the bottle, she hands it to Vanessa. 

She watches as she takes a gulp, and then another, doesn’t stop until she’s drank a rough glassful, is pulling the bottle away from her lips with a sour expression upon her face. She hands the bottle over to Brooke, and Brooke copies her actions, licks across her lips once she sets the bottle down precariously on the arm of the couch next to them. 

Vanessa’s laughing, again.

Brooke doesn’t want her to stop, ever, decides there and then with the warmth of the wine flowing through her chest, settling in her stomach that she’d have Vanessa on repeat if she could, play her akin to a record. Vanessa looks at her like she knows what Brooke is thinking, can see straight through her nonchalant facial expression, and giggles into the skin of Brooke’s shoulder. 

“I missed you, y’know?”. Vanessa breathes. 

Her voice is warm, smooth yet gruff against Brooke, and Brooke feels the immediate goosebumps forming across her body, down her spine and to her toes. Brooke shakes her head in disbelief, reaches once more for the bottle and takes a hearty swig, passes it to Vanessa when she motions towards the neck of it.

“This is _crazy_ -“. Brooke mutters. 

“-How did you even get here, how did you find this place?”. She offloads. 

Discarding the bottle on the floor at her feet, Vanessa shrugs. She lifts her hand, taps her finger to her nose, feigns secrecy when Brooke pouts noticeably. Brooke refrains from reaching for the bottle that Vanessa has landed just out of her reach, tells herself it’s for the best; she still needs to drive home, hopes that she’ll be getting to take Vanessa with her, knows that she can’t be tipsy behind the wheel. 

“I uh, _may_ or may not have had Kameron’s help planning the whole thing-”. Vanessa confesses. 

Brooke could have guessed. 

“-I told her I had a layover in Toronto, wanted to come visit ‘ya. She gave me the address of this place and told me you’d be here until god knows what time. Jus’ took a cab from the airport”. She summarises quickly, as smug as Brooke’s ever seen her, yet with a bashful glint in her eye. 

Brooke is in awe. 

“How long?-“. Brooke coughs.

“-How long are you here for?”. She clarifies. 

“A week, give or take-”. Vanessa states. 

Eyes widening and jaw gaping, Brooke squeezes at Vanessa hand that’s crept its way onto her lap. She intertwines their fingers, draws their bodies closer than they already had been, has Vanessa shuffling until she’s straddling one of Brooke’s thighs. Brooke allows her to do so - she wants her to do so - and bundles Vanessa up in her arms, all padded coats and thick sweaters, the scent of her vanilla shampoo tickling at Brooke’s nostrils. 

“-I have a show next week and then like, everyday after that for a while but, until then I’m all yours”. Vanessa beams.

_I’m all yours_ \- Brooke can’t believe her luck. 

*****

They’re still sat in Brooke’s office an hour later. 

It’s eight in the evening - Vanessa has warmed up enough to remove her coat and her hat, is tucked underneath Brooke’s arm on the couch in merely her leggings, a slouchy sweater - and Brooke’s rambling rambling rambling, unable to stop herself. Vanessa listens intently, responds as eagerly as she ever has when appropriate, keeps her eyes trained on Brooke’s barely clothed, leotard clad body. 

Neither are the slightest bit drunk, not even tipsy - Brooke can recall from their vacation that they can both handle their alcohol with ease - and Brooke’s mid way through explaining her thought process behind a dance for one of her classes when Vanessa interrupts, cuts Brooke off by stroking a single finger down her cheek. Brooke shivers, leans into Vanessa’s touch, watches with intrigue as Vanessa brushes across her eyebrows. 

“Will you show me?”. Vanessa asks.

“The dance?”. Brooke checks.

“Yeah-“. Vanessa certifies.

“-Maybe I could help a ‘lil”. She sounds confident. 

Brooke doesn’t doubt her skills - she’s seen clips of Vanessa performing, knows that she’s exquisite - and is agreeing wordlessly, nodding her head, gesturing for Vanessa to go ahead. Vanessa grins wildly, detangles herself from Brooke in order to stand. She shakes off her limbs, loosens them, and Brooke follows, gives Vanessa a brief walk over of the routine as Vanessa stands patiently; she looks at Brooke like she’s otherworldly. 

Vanessa takes it all in. The seamless way that Brooke’s body moves is enviable, addictive to the eye, and she’s crossing her arms across her chest with a proud simper on her face. Brooke blushes noticeably - she tells herself that it’s a recurring theme for as long as Vanessa’s around - and finishes with a mock bow that Vanessa rolls her eyes at. 

Brooke flings herself back down onto the couch as soon as she’s done, can’t stand the thought of being on her feet for a second longer than she needs to be after the day she’s had, and gives Vanessa a nod when she looks on uncertainly. There’s no reason for her to be nervous, Brooke tells her as much, and Vanessa visibly perks up when Brooke searches through the music on her phone, selects the backing track that beats through Vanessa’s veins. 

“Better”. Vanessa decides, and then she’s moving. 

She prances around the small room in a way that Brooke doesn’t understand. Everything’s fluid, precise yet relaxed, and she succeeds in adding her own flourishes to Brooke’s movements without so much as brushing up against Brooke’s desk, the half full trash can in the corner. Her extensions are elegant, and Brooke shouldn’t be surprised; she’s a dancer, regardless of what genre. 

“How about-“. Vanessa ponders.

“-Something like _this_ for the transition?”. She asks.

Brooke can’t fault her. She executes a segment of the dance that she’s been trying and failing to choreograph for the best part of a week, and cocks her eyebrows questioningly when she’s done. She sits back down onto the couch, allows a slither of space between them. Brooke’s thankful for it - having Vanessa pressed up against her throws her concentration out of the window - and she’s beaming eagerly back at Vanessa. 

“Did you just go all contemporary on me?”. Brooke jokes.

“Mix it up once in a while”. Vanessa shrugs, smiles.

Brooke thinks it’s the perfect addition.

***** 

They’re restless again within minutes. 

Vanessa wants to leave, Brooke wants to take her. 

They pack up briskly, Vanessa clothing herself once more in her layers that Brooke counts to be five, six with her coat, and are switching off the lights to Brooke’s office unceremoniously. Brooke guides Vanessa back through the corridor, to the hallway entrance where Vanessa had discarded her suitcase, and grasps ahold of it for her; she hands Vanessa the keys to the studio to lock up whilst she clears the windscreen of her car from the thin layer of snow that has fallen. 

Vanessa’s back by her side before she’s finished, and slips the keys into the pocket of Brooke’s jacket, squeezes her tightly from behind once before releasing. Brooke grins openly at her as she rounds her car, cranks open the trunk with ease and lifts Vanessa’s suitcase off of the ground with one arm, lays it flat inside of the car. She closes said trunk once she’s thrown her own bag in, too, turns on her heel which crunches against the loose gravel on the ground, and turns to face Vanessa once more.

“You drive _this_?”. Vanessa asks, smirk prevalent on her lips as she ghosts a hand across the tire on the back of Brooke’s jeep. 

Laughing as she hops into the drivers seat effortlessly, extending a hand to Vanessa - its not necessary, but Vanessa accepts it anyway - Brooke nods her head. She kick starts the ignition with a turn of her keys, switches on the radio only to be met with illegible rumbles of a station that’s struggling to pick up signal. Vanessa clicks her seatbelt into place as Brooke begins reversing out of the parking lot that she recalls entering through, and edges out slowly onto the main road, cautious of the ice that’s forming atop of the snow.

“Yeah-“. Brooke clears her throat. 

“-You need it for when it gets bad around here”. She elaborates. 

“Hm-“. Vanessa sounds.

“-That’s _real_ dyke-ey of you”. She teases. 

Keeping her eyes fixated on the road, Brooke scowls. It’s joking, she’s laughing, but then Vanessa’s hand is migrating to her thigh, resting on it as Brooke presses her foot to the accelerator, turns the steering wheel in order to take the quickest route back to her apartment. She can see Vanessa smirking at her out of the corner of her eye, and turns her head briefly when they arrive at a stop light, only a single other car pulling up behind them.

“Shut up”. Brooke mumbles, digs her teeth into her bottom lip.

She feels Vanessa’s grip tighten on her thigh, her short nails indenting her skin even through the fabric of her pants. Brooke has her legs spread - she doesn’t think she’s capable of elegantly driving a jeep - and keeps one hand steering the vehicle, places her free hand atop of Vanessa’s. She squeezes once, twice, and Vanessa’s moving her touch higher, leaning as far over the centre console as physically possible, is placing a featherlight kiss to the skin beneath Brooke’s ear.

“It’s hot”. Vanessa breathes. 

“My dyke driving turns you on?”. Brooke shivers. 

Vanessa giggles into her ear, light and airy, and pulls away as the stop light turns green, rests herself back comfortably in the passenger seat. Brooke plants her foot firmly on the accelerator once more, sends the car off with a jerk and runs her now free fingers through her hair. It’s wavy, has curled from the humidity that’s built in and around her body as she’d danced throughout the day, and she curses herself for not bleaching up her roots to match the rest of the lengths, all icy and platinum when she catches sight of herself in the rear view mirror. 

Her hair tickles at her shoulders, but Vanessa is back tickling her thigh, and then her arm, is tucking a strand that’s particularly curly behind Brooke’s ear. Brooke shudders - her entire body feels riddled in goosebumps - and lifts her limp hand, plants it firmly on the steering wheel, grips tighter and tighter until her knuckles turn as white as the snow outside. 

“You’re a natural blonde”. Vanessa mumbles. 

“Yeah-“. Brooke grits out between her teeth. 

“-Kinda’, dirty blonde”. She explains. 

Nodding her head, Vanessa gives in. She places her hands calmly, composedly in her lap, and stares directly out of the windscreen ahead of herself. She’s barely able to make out the passing cars in the dark - granted, there aren’t many of them around due to the snow, the late hour - only their fluorescent headlights. They blind her, make her squint, but then she’s registering Brooke’s words, is twisting her face to form a sly smile.

“I like a dirty blonde”. Vanessa states. 

“ _Fuck_ -“. Brooke groans. 

“-My place is literally twenty minutes away, can you try to not kill me before then?”. She pleads. 

Shrugging her shoulders, no intention of stopping, Vanessa hums. She crosses her legs, clenches the muscles of her calves and her thighs - Brooke allows herself a brief glance whilst they’re on a clear stretch of road - and props her head up on her hand, her elbow resting on the car door. She runs her eyes from brooks bobbing throat, her straining breaths and down, down down down until she lands on the floor and delivers her response. 

“I’ll make no promises”. 

*****

Both think that the other will jump their bones as soon as they arrive at Brooke’s apartment. 

They _don’t_. 

Brooke sends Vanessa off with her keys to open up the door to her apartment, retrieves Vanessa’s suitcase and her own bag from the trunk of the car before joining Vanessa in the hallway. She closes the door behind them, is immediately thankful that she’d left the heating on the morning prior; the space is warm, her skin thaws out as she begins removing her coat, sweater, shoes.

Vanessa seems to think so, too, and is following Brooke in the removal of her clothing. She stands in the same leggings and loose shirt that she’d been wearing in Brooke’s office - the sheer sight of Vanessa in her home is making her heart swell out of her chest - and sighs, a satisfied smile caressing her face. Brooke mirrors her unwittingly, and points to Vanessa’s suitcase once she’s collected all of their discarded items in her arms, hangs their coats on the hooks provided and tosses the remaining items to a corner of her couch. 

“We can, uh, leave this in my room, if that’s cool?”. Brooke checks. 

“Mhm, sure”. Vanessa agrees.

Brooke nods - Vanessa’s taking her own suitcase handle in her hand this time before Brooke is able to protest - and follows Brooke to her bedroom, down a short corridor and through the single door that she finds there. They step in one after the other, switch the lights on with Vanessa amusedly commenting on the empty packet of cookies that sit on Brooke’s bed side table. It makes Brooke chuckle; she tells Vanessa that the _last_ thing she expected was company when she’d left her bed unmade, underwear scattered across the floor when she had left for work that morning.

She works quickly to tidy as much up as possible, blushes when Vanessa wheels her suitcase to an empty corner of the room, then perches herself delicately on the edge of Brooke’s bed. Brooke observes her as she tosses aforementioned underwear into her laundry basket, motions towards the bathroom when Vanessa gazes up at her softly, smiles bashfully. 

“I’m ‘gonna change out of this leotard and throw on something more comfortable if you ‘wanna, I don’t know”. Brooke halts.

“-I have blankets and stuff, we could watch a movie?”. She suggests.

_Watch a movie_. Brooke is kicking herself. _Watch a movie_. Vanessa is looking at her with humour behind her eyes, her cheeks puckering in a smile. She stands regardless, walks around the perimeter of Brooke’s bed until they’re stood face to face, Vanessa having to crane her neck slightly. Her hands weave themselves around Brooke’s waist without a word, draw the woman closer until they’re pressed chest to chest, hip to hip, and Brooke’s visibly relaxing, allowing herself to drape her arms around Vanessa’s neck.

Brooke doesn’t know when the atmosphere switched. She wanted to touch Vanessa, everywhere, worship her until the sun comes up. She wanted to lay Vanessa down in her bed, wanted to fuck her, make her repeat Brooke’s name over and over in a mantra - Brooke Brooke Brooke - but now she’s caught, is stuck.

Seeing Vanessa again in person is different to how she thought it would be. The lust is still there, undeniably, the want that she has for Vanessa, all of her, runs rampant through her veins, yet it’s taken Brooke hours to admit to herself that she wants more than that. She wants Vanessa’s words, her adoration, her quiet mumbles that she saves just for Brooke and her ears, and thinks that Vanessa wants it too when she’s looking up at her still, is leaning in to press a single, barely there kiss to Brooke’s parted lips.

“Yeah-“. Vanessa breathes. 

“-I’ll watch a movie with you”. She chuckles. 

Brooke connects their lips once more.

She kisses Vanessa like she’s a precious stone, delicate and fragile, angelic and worth the world. Brooke thinks that she’s all of those things - she’s also hot, feisty, molten in Brooke’s arms - and pulls away before she falls too far into the depths of Vanessa.

“Where d’ya keep the blankets and shit?-“. Vanessa questions as Brooke cranks open the en suite door. 

“-I’ll grab ‘em and set up in the living room”. She reassures.

Brooke mouths closet, points towards the door behind Vanessa. Vanessa nods her head in understanding, and is heading for said door as Brooke enters the bathroom, forgoes closing the door completely behind her. Brooke changes her clothes swiftly - she opts for one of her baggiest sweaters, underwear that’s comfortable rather than provocative - and pads quietly to the living room with two bottles of water that she’d retrieved from the kitchen along the way. 

She clutches one in each hand, passes one to Vanessa who smiles up at her gratefully from her position on the ground, swimming in blankets and cushions. Brooke takes all of it in; Vanessa’s switched on her fireplace, has taken it upon herself to turn on the television, select a movie that Brooke’s never heard of and arrange the area in a way that has Brooke wanting to dive into it. 

It’s what she does. Vanessa encourages her, pulls Brooke down by her hand into the sea of comfort, wraps them both in blanket that smells of Brooke’s floral fabric softener. It mixes with the scent of Vanessa, all sweet and vanilla, and Brooke’s drawn to it unwittingly, buries herself in a nest of honeysuckle and sweetness when they both lay down, heads on pillows and arms interlinked. 

Brooke’s bare legs shift against the supple material, as do Vanessa’s - it takes Brooke longer than she knows that it should have for her to notice that Vanessa has shed her leggings, is merely clad in her underwear, a slouchy shirt - and Vanessa is pressing her cold toes into Brooke’s calf, drawing a shiver from her body. Brooke furrows her eyebrows at the feeling, strokes her hand from Vanessa’s shoulder to her waist as Vanessa toys with the television remote, clicks play.

“Are you warm enough?”. Brooke checks, eyes filled with concern. 

Humming, Vanessa nods her head, curls herself further into Brooke’s body. 

“I will be”. Vanessa convinces. 

She is. They watch the movie to begin with, laughter tumbling from Vanessa’s and eventually Brooke’s lips when she begins to understand the plot. It’s funny - she can’t deny it when Vanessa’s body is vibrating against her own, giggles bouncing around the shells of her ears - and she’s chuckling along eagerly, smiling to herself when Vanessa touches her now warm toes to Brooke’s ankles fifteen minutes or so into the movie. 

“Told ‘ya”. Vanessa whispers.

She’s manoeuvring herself, then, wrapping the blankets tighter around both herself and Brooke as she slots her legs into the space between both of Brooke’s, rests her chin on Brooke’s chest. Their eyes are linked, chained together, and the movie quickly becomes background noise that Brooke doesn’t care for when Vanessa is there, in her face, dark eyelashes blinking up at her with -

\- _Something_.

Brooke’s unable to pin point it. It’s not a look that anybody’s ever given her before - she’s had women look at her like they want her, want her to fuck them - but she’s never had somebody with eyes as intense as Vanessa’s looking back at her. It’s startling; Vanessa blinks and it screams love, maybe, Brooke hopes that it does, as well awe when Brooke blinks back. 

She threads her hand loosely in Vanessa’s hair, scratches her short nails across Vanessa’s scalp like she knows that she enjoys. The action has Vanessa keening, humming in satisfaction, and Brooke continues the menial ministrations for as long as Vanessa remains content. It lasts until it doesn’t, and Vanessa’s lifting her head once more, connecting her lips with Brooke’s before Brooke has time to contemplate it. 

“Brooklyn”. She breathes into the kiss. 

_Brooklyn_. It lights a fire in Brooke’s gut. 

“Say it again”. Brooke murmurs, knots her fingers in Vanessa’s hair.

“Brooklyn”. Vanessa replies slowly. 

She drawls it at a snails pace, let’s each syllable drip off of her tongue like wax, burning through Brooke’s skin. She repeats it again - Vanessa relishes in the way that it makes Brooke soften, yet has her eyes growing darker - and again, until Brooke is reconnecting their lips, kissing Vanessa like she’s been wanting for months. Vanessa accepts each and every peck, each nip to her lower lip and each grasp to her hips when Brooke’s hands travel lower. 

Vanessa cups Brooke’s face, presses her thumbs into Brooke’s cheekbones as their lips move against one and others, eyelashes fluttering. Brooke revels in it - she still doesn’t know whether she’s dreamt Vanessa up or not - and has the tips of her fingers slipping beneath the thin lace covering the crease of Vanessa’s thigh where it meets her ass before Vanessa’s able to begin working Brooke’s sweater up her stomach. 

It has Vanessa groaning into Brooke’s mouth, grinding against her upper thigh that’s all muscle, a solid weight beneath her. Brooke grins despite herself, proud of the reaction that she’s able to elicit, and pinches at the soft skin beneath her palm. Vanessa squeals; it’s not loud, Brooke doesn’t think she’d be able to hear it from a handful of feet away, and swallows it down greedily. 

“Been thinkin’ about this for so long”. Vanessa interrupts. 

Brooke doesn’t respond.

She’s rolling the both of them over, instead, is straddling Vanessa’s waist, resting her weight on both of her arms that she brackets either side of Vanessa’s head. It’s getting warm, stuffy - Vanessa pushes the blanket off of Brooke’s back - and Brooke chuckles deep in her throat when Vanessa drags her closer, encourages Brooke to press their hips together. 

It’s all skin on skin, even more so when Vanessa works Brooke’s shirt up and over her head, motions for Brooke to do the same with hers. She does it without question, takes the want in Vanessa’s eyes and the minuscule please that leaves her lips as consent, and leans back down when they’re both clothed in only their panties; Brooke’s are blue and Vanessa’s red. 

“Off”. Vanessa husks. 

Brooke listens. 

She’s discarding her own without thought, coaxes Vanessa’s down her thighs slower, with a tenderness that has tears forming behind Vanessa’s eyes, and swoops her gaze across the woman that’s been the igniting matches in her body for longer than she cares to admit, converting them into flames that fuel Brooke further. Vanessa whines - it rings in Brooke’s ears, piercing and euphoric - and Brooke doesn’t get past gliding a hand across the toned panes of Vanessa’s stomach before Vanessa is stopping her, shaking her head. 

“I want you to fuck me-“. Vanessa breathes. 

“- _But_ not yet. You can do whatever you want to me later but I just ‘wanna-“. She trails off.

Brooke encourages her with a microscopic murmur. 

“-Let me”. She concludes, pleads.

Vanessa motions down the length of Brooke’s body, drums her fingers in a non existent rhythm against the small of her back. Her words have Brooke reeling - Brooke can’t think of anything better than coming apart under Vanessa’s hands, her mouth, her - and is nodding her head wordlessly, remains mute until Vanessa pulls her back in for another kiss that feels endless. 

“You remember Halloween?-”. Brooke teases, paints a blush across Vanessa’s cheeks with her insinuation. 

“-When you called me and told me all about how you wanted me to sit on your face?”. She reminds Vanessa.

“I remember-“. Vanessa bites at her lip.

“-‘Kinda _really_ want that to happen right now”. She admits. 

Brooke isn’t about to deny her of it. 

She kisses Vanessa once more, licks her way into her mouth and straddles her waist. She clamps her thighs down around Vanessa, begins grinding on her stomach as Vanessa scratches down the length of her back, moves her hand so that she’s able to slot it between both of their bodies. Her knuckles brush up against Brooke’s chest, and then lower, her fingertips palming at Brooke’s clit as she whines high in her throat, exhales raggedly into Vanessa’s mouth.

Vanessa grins in response, dips her fingers lower when Brooke’s hips jolt, two fingers pressing into the wetness that Brooke can feel dripping, coating Vanessa’s hand and her stomach. She groans, nods her head in encouragement as Vanessa crooks an eyebrow, pulls away from the kiss briefly. Brooke knows that her eyes are already blown out, pupils dilated from the pleasure that’s coursing through her body - Vanessa has barely touched her, it’s too much - and gazes back into Vanessa’s own that are soft, yearning, wicked. 

“You want it?”. Vanessa teases. 

Mewling, Brooke cants her hips once more, the movement causes Vanessa’s fingers to brush back up against her clit. It’s throbbing, she needs release, and she’s burying her head in the crooks of Vanessa’s neck, is pressing a kiss to the juncture where her shoulder meets her collarbones when Vanessa curls two fingers inside of her, hooks them in a way that renders Brooke slack atop of her.

“Please”. Brooke begs, gasps when Vanessa pulls out only to rub across her clit lightly.

“Hm-“. Vanessa hums. 

“-Alright, up”. She directs. 

Guiding her hands to Brooke’s waist, she helps Brooke find her balance, clamber to her knees until they’re situated either side of Vanessa’s head. Vanessa grins up at her, laces both of her hands with Brooke’s and rests them on both of Brooke’s hips, squeezes when she feels Brooke’s body shudder. Brooke smiles timidly - she’s never shy, but Vanessa has her crumbling - and lowers herself when Vanessa nods her head, pulls down reassuringly. 

“You’re so-“. Brooke is cut off when Vanessa’s mouth makes contact with her.

Her movements are agonisingly slow. She envelopes Brooke with her mouth, drags her tongue up and down her folds before sucking her clit into her mouth, begins and maintains a rhythm that has Brooke battling to keep her eyes open. Vanessa doesn’t give in, keeps her pressure constant, narrows her eyes - it’s a challenge, Brooke takes it - and detangles one of her hands from Brooke’s.

She glides it down the length of her own body, smiles up into Brooke and shudders as she presses against her own clit. She’s as wet as Brooke is - Brooke can tell from the sounds that fill the room, become music to her ears - and Brooke takes her now free hand, weaves it into Vanessa’s hair. She pulls Vanessa’s mouth tighter tighter tighter against her, gasps and whines when Vanessa pulls away briefly to heave in a breath.

Her mouth is back on Brooke within seconds, and Brooke is squeezing her eyes closed, blinking them open rapidly moments later as Vanessa groans into her. Brooke finds herself unable to focus on anything besides the feeling building in her gut, travelling throughout the entirety of her body when she rocks her hips, clenches her thighs around Vanessa’s head and tugs harder on her hair.

“You’re ‘gonna make me come so quickly”. Brooke forces out, scratches her nails across Vanessa’s scalp.

“Yeah?-“. Vanessa moans.

Brooke can tell from the heightened breathiness in her voice that she’s already gotten herself off with her own fingers - they’re back on Brooke’s waist, wet and slipping against her skin - and she wants to kiss her, thank her when she smiles, encouragement bursting in beads of sweat on her forehead and want behind her eyes.

“-Then come, let _go_ ”. She finishes.

Stroking her thumb across Vanessa’s furrowed eyebrows, Brooke does. She comes with Vanessa’s name on her lips, calls her Vanessa - Brooke still thinks it’s the prettiest name she’s ever heard - and drips onto Vanessa’s tongue that speaks her adoration right up inside of Brooke. Her vision goes blurry and the muscles in her legs tense; Brooke struggles to remember the last time she’d came as hard, be it as a result of her own hands or another woman’s.

She doesn’t understand it. 

“ _Fuck_ ”. Brooke can’t breathe.

She sits back on Vanessa’s chest momentarily, catches what little air her lungs are able to before she’s slumping back next to Vanessa, their heads resting on the same pillow. The temperature of the room around them drops rapidly, and Vanessa ensures to drape the discarded blanket back over their bodies, nestles into Brooke’s side when she begins giggling, palm presses to her lips. 

Vanessa giggles along with her, laughs into her ear, wipes at the handful of tears that are streaking themselves down Brooke’s cheeks, flowing back into her hairline. Vanessa strokes them away with her thumbs, leans up on her elbows in order to kiss them; Brooke finds herself wanting to cry harder at the tenderness of Vanessa’s actions. 

“Ok?”. Vanessa checks.

She hooks her leg across Brooke’s waist, rests her chin on her shoulder as Brooke nods, mumbles a faint sorry that Vanessa hushes as soon as it leaves her lips. Brooke’s eyes are tired, exhausted - Vanessa recognises the tell tale signs of being over worked in every fibre of her being - and she’s kissing gently at her collarbones, Vanessa’s hand linked with Brooke’s atop of her stomach.

“M’good-”. Brooke whispers.

“-Long day”. She brushes it off, receives a nod from Vanessa.

“You ‘wanna sleep here?”. Vanessa soothes.

“ _Please_ ”. Brooke lets her eyes slip closed.

They do. Brooke falls asleep after kissing Vanessa goodnight, love love love dripping off of her tongue but not making it to Vanessa’s ears. Vanessa follows half an hour or so later - she spends the majority of the time that it takes her to drift off to observe Brooke, her deep breaths, hands that grasp for Vanessa in her sleep - and evens out the rise and fall of her chest to the sound of the television that still plays in the background.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love you.
> 
> Brooke can’t believe her ears. She’s been thinking it for months, hasn’t dared tell a soul with the exception of Kameron, and Monét at the studio when she had pestered her. I love you. It hangs in the air akin to smoke above them, doesn’t dissipate even as Vanessa connects their lips, kisses Brooke like the means it; Brooke guesses that she does, because she loves her, and Brooke loves her right back, is in love with her.
> 
> I love you.
> 
> Brooke pulls away grinning, and tells her.
> 
> I love you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Another ch! This one was super fun to write, and I won’t give any spoilers even though I’m pretty sure we all know by now, but it was especially nice to finish off through ~recent real life branjie events~!
> 
> There’ll be one more ch after this, but I have a couple of more things planned as far as this ship goes! I hope ya’ll keep it respectful and enjoy these two queens for who they are and their insane amounts of talent beyond this world of fic.
> 
> With that said, I hope you enjoy this! Happiness brought to you by lesbianism!

Vanessa stays for the week.

She inhabits Brooke’s home like she owns it, wakes Brooke up in the mornings with burnt toast and herbal tea before she sees Brooke off to work, welcomes her back in the late evenings with a kiss and a grin. It’s all that Brooke needs; Vanessa isn’t the best cook - they often end up crashing on her worn in couch with takeout food, the television playing mute in the background - but she finds that it doesn’t matter.

None of it matters. Vanessa is, _Vanessa_. Brooke is unable to predict her, predict any of her actions, and allows herself to fall headfirst into the feelings that she conjures up in her chest, the way her heart constricts whenever Vanessa ghosts a hand across her shoulder, presses her lips to Brooke’s neck. Brooke falls falls falls - Vanessa reassures her in broken whispers that she’s plummeting too - and hopes that they both land on cushioned ground, descend further than the uneven floorboards of the universe. 

They do. 

It’s all so much, _too_ much, and when the end of the week jumps out at them, Vanessa’s final night and performance looming over them akin to a tightened cloud during a storm, Brooke blows it away with a single breath. Vanessa mumbles about not wanting to leave, not wanting to have to be away from Brooke, again, and casts her eyes towards Brooke whenever she’s able to during the tours opening night performance; Brooke looks back at her like Vanessa is the only woman in the arena. 

Vanessa leaves the next day. 

It’s a Tuesday, Brooke thinks, can’t be certain with the monotonous routine that she throws herself into, and busies herself with attempting to remain sidetracked until Vanessa messages to tell her that her flight has landed in Maine. Brooke’s gut churns - Vanessa’s already over six hundred miles away, will be even more so within the next twenty four hours - and she responds with thumbs that feel like deadweights, a tongue that she has to bite. 

**_Vanessa_ : Just landed! Missing ur dumb face already but u knew that. Hope ur good baby**

**_Brooke_ : Stay safe! I miss you too, Kill that show tonight! (Don’t) break a leg **

**_Vanessa_ : U funny. I’ll call u later? After the show? Wanna hear ur voice **

**_Brooke_ : I’d like that **

*****

Vanessa does call her that night. 

It’s two in the morning, from the confines of the chaos of Vanessa’s shared hotel room and Brooke’s silent, hollow apartment, but it’s something. Brooke picks up the call with glee - any ounce of exhaustion that she had harboured in her body leaves the instant that she hears Vanessa’s voice - and slumps into her bed that still manages to smell like Vanessa’s vanilla perfume, her shampoo. 

She inhales, exhales, curls her toes into the fabric of her bed sheets as Vanessa talks, talks some more, begins telling Brooke about about the crowd of the night. It’s enthralling - Brooke is certain that she could listen to Vanessa ramble for hours on end, she has done before - and she runs a hand through her tangling hair as she sprawls out further in her bed, focuses on the barks of laughter emanating from the speaker of her phone. 

“ _Oh_!-“. Vanessa starts. 

“-Did I tell ‘ya about the fuckin’ dude we had trying to get on stage tonight? Girl, let me tell ‘ya, it was wild”. She finishes. 

She emphasises her words with a click of her tongue that reverberates in Brooke’s ears, causes her to laugh right back down the phone line. Brooke closes her eyes momentarily, clutches her free hand to her chest as she buries her face sideways into her pillow, grateful for Vanessa’s openness, her brash sense of self; the tequila that she knows she’s drank that helps her along with it. 

“That crazy, huh?”. Brooke breathes. 

She can imagine that it is. Brooke’s had her fair share of bizarre tour experiences, occurrences that are still able to make her chuckle, ones that she’d rather forget about, store in a cell in the back of her mind, too. There’d been a variety, ranging from pranksters to threats when she’d last toured the country, the states, and she finds herself reminiscing along with Vanessa, recounting the nights she’d once spent holed up in crammed hotel rooms. 

“Ok so-“. Vanessa begins to elaborate. 

“-This guy, maybe like forty, real dad lookin’ and wearing a Hawaiian shirt, gets past security and onto the stage, the actual stage! So we think he’s drunk, whatever, but then fuckin’ Trixie’s talking to him and then he’s playing her god damn guitar and, wait for it, he knows the whole of yellow cloud. All of it! Even the _do do do do_ part!”. She dramatises. 

Brooke struggles to hold back the snort that catches in her throat. She’s cackling, the image that Vanessa paints for her etched into her mind, imprinting onto her eyelids so that when she blinks she sees Vanessa, laughing, grinning, teeth glinting. It’s all vivid, flickering realisations that this is right, this is good, _Vanessa_ is right. She brushes her fingers up against her eyebrows, messes with them until they sit disheveled - a nervous habit that she knows that she should break - and hums until Vanessa fills the silence once more.

“Hang on-“. She grunts. 

“-Let me just, I’m ‘gonna, hold up a second”. Vanessa stumbles.

Brooke hears shuffling, listens to a door slamming, and then -

\- _Quiet_. 

“Hey, sorry-“. Vanessa adds.

“The girls are really loud, just wanted to talk to you”. She admits. 

Gulping, Brooke feels the air leave her lungs, watches it tumble out onto her mattress. Vanessa’s voice is soft - it’s like the alcohols been knocked out of her - and she’s waiting patiently for Brooke to answer; Brooke does so once she’s given herself time to adjust to the contrast, the stillness that now surrounds the both of them. 

Brooke’s able to picture Vanessa as easily as she ever has, leant up against the horrifically wallpapered wall of the corridor outside of her hotel room, shoulder blades pressed into the brick. She can visualise her holding the phone to her ear, pressing it tighter, firmer in order to hear Brooke, the signal crackling temperamentally. It’s a sight that Brooke wishes that she could be present for - Vanessa blushing, scuffing her toes across patterned carpet - and she’s allowing her eyes to drift closed once more when Vanessa sighs. 

“I’m here”. Brooke reassures. 

“I know”. Vanessa whispers quickly. 

Brooke thinks that she _does_ know.

They don’t speak. Brooke listens to Vanessa as she begins humming an aimless tune to herself, can hear her nails tapping rhythmically against the shell of her phone. It’s comforting - neither dare break the calm until Vanessa’s manager is intervening, something about flights, call times - and Brooke sighs to herself, focuses on the warmth of the duvet wrapped around her body, the faint glow of her bedside lamp.

“Flights at seven”. Vanessa clarifies. 

Nodding her head to herself, Brooke clears her throat. Vanessa sounds tired, more tired than Brooke thinks that she’s ever heard her - Vanessa is normally the more exuberant, the more lively of the two - and she is, she _is_ tired. She wants to sleep, loves touring, adores it with every fibre of her being that holds onto dance like it’s her only life support, but wants to sleep none the less, fall into bed and rise days later. 

“I’m tired”. Vanessa mumbles.

“I know-”. Brooke soothes. 

“-When’s your next day off?”. She questions. 

“Couldn’t tell you”. Vanessa huffs.

She couldn’t. Brooke knows as much, and nods her head once more, understands that Vanessa can’t see her through the screen of the phone but does so regardless. She nestles herself deeper into the suppleness of her bed, the familiarity of it all, and waits for Vanessa to continue talking; she knows that she will, can feel it brewing, boiling between them. 

“Maybe like, two weeks?”. Vanessa contemplates 

“And then it’s holiday season?”. Brooke checks. 

“Yeah, _I_ -“. Vanessa starts. 

She halts herself mid sentence, cuts off her words with a scissors so sharp that it shocks Brooke. Vanessa rarely withholds herself, never forgoes an opportunity to express herself verbally - Brooke envies her for it, loves her for it - and is sighing once more seconds later, drawing the phone away from her ear before picking it back up, pressing it further into her skull so that it hurts. 

“‘Ness”. Brooke prompts, feels her heart swelling. 

There’s another beat of silence. 

“Come to Florida for New Years”. Vanessa blurts. 

“ _What_?”. Brooke blinks her eyes open.

“Come stay with me, I’ll have all of New Years off, spend it with me?”. She adds. 

Brooke’s heart swells continuously as Vanessa rambles, doesn’t stop until it emerges from her throat, explodes and paints the cream walls of her apartment in burgundy splatters, streaks of infatuation that grow brighter, more vibrant as Vanessa mumbles her name; _Brooklyn Brooklyn Brooklyn._

Vanessa says it like it’s easy - Brooke guesses that it is, is the simplest thing, yet the most complex - and is patient like Brooke’s never known as she mulls over the words that hang between them. _Come to Florida for New Years. Come stay with me. Spend it with me_. Brooke wants to, she will, knows her response before she’s even had time to contemplate it, is exhaling _yes_ after _yes_ that cause Vanessa to grin unabashedly, tequila heavy breath fogging up the glass of her phone screen. 

“You will?-”. Vanessa giggles.

“-I want you here, want you to meet my momma, all that shit”. She confesses. 

Brooke feels lightheaded. Vanessa keeps dropping one bomb after another, only she doesn’t mind, welcomes it, and is grinning into the fabric of her pillow case as Vanessa hums, seeks out Brooke’s affirmations that come in the form of more whispered yeses, breathless and tired admissions; Vanessa catches them, savours them and thrives off of them. 

“You’re sure?”. Brooke checks.

“So, _so_ god damn sure”. Vanessa emphasises.

Brooke knows that she is when Vanessa sends her a link to a prepaid plane ticket half an hour after they end the call. 

*****

Her flight is at seven in the morning on the thirtieth of December. 

She checks in and boards in a daze - she’s tired, has kept herself awake with the sheer nerves that have shaken her to her core - and endures the three hours that the flight lasts for with a jittering leg and sweaty palms. She wipes them furiously on the material of her pants, a pair of loose sweats that she knows aren’t the most attractive, and scrapes her hair back into a pony tail that resembles one that’s been slept on for a day or two, she decides. 

It’s ten o’clock by the time that she passes security for the second time, having collected her suitcase from luggage and made her way to the arrivals lounge. It’s not an airport that she’s familiar with, believes that she’d passed through it on a single tour once in her early twenties, and she finds herself relying on the questionable sign postage to get her to the exit gate. 

The air is warm. Warmer than Canada in the midst of July and warmer than Brooke thinks winter should ever be. Her skin is tacky, prickling with heat as the unfamiliar temperatures caress her entire body, from her ill fitting tank top to the sliver of ankle that remains exposed between the cuff of her pants and her worn in sneakers. Said sneakers irritate at her heels as she walks, struts across to the section of the parking lot that she’d memorised from messages in her phone and searches, waits. 

Brooke knows that she doesn’t look _bad_. She’s looked worse after full days at the studio, face greasy and hair messy, and hasn’t ever before cared when she’s been confronted with the sight of herself in the reflections of windows, bags prominent under her eyes and loose tank top blooming in patches of sweat. She looks - Brooke doesn’t know, wishes that she did - but then she’s tipping past the point of caring, is locking eyes with Vanessa from across the parking lot.

Vanessa is there, _her_ Vanessa that she’d travel to hell and back for, leant against the drivers side of her small, open top tangerine car. She’s clad in a pair of shorts that match her shirt; they’re both white, Brooke notes that she looks angelic, ethereal, despite the sinful glint that that sparks in her eyes as Brooke nears, as well as the nonchalant grin that grows, evolves when she fails to suppress it. 

Brooke keeps walking. Her feet carry her on their own accord, have her legs moving at such a pace that the wheels of her suitcase catch against her heels. She winces at the pinch, grimaces into thin air until she’s three foot away, two foot away, is in Vanessa’s arms, aforementioned suitcase a forgotten thought. She tightens her hold - Vanessa’s mumbling into her ear about how much she’s missed her, how glad she is for Brooke to be there, with her - and only dares to untangle herself when Vanessa presses a single peck to her collarbone. 

“Hi, you”. Brooke simpers. 

She weaves her fingers into Vanessa’s golden hair, the wavy strands that hit her chest. It’s like silk against her fingertips, and Brooke inhales the scent of spiced vanilla that drifts from it as Vanessa moves, links her own hands behind Brooke’s head, tickles at the curls of hair forming at the nape of her neck. Vanessa’s nails scratch lightly against her skin, too, leave ghosts of red in their wake - Brooke shivers, presses herself closer - and Vanessa is pushing herself up onto her toes, making herself level with Brooke. 

“Hey baby”. Vanessa beams.

Their lips are on each others before Brooke’s able to protest. She feels disgusting, sweaty, clothes stuck to every inch of her body that she wants to shed, rip away. It’s hot, stuffy, borders on suffocating when Vanessa tightens her grip further, pulls Brooke down to alleviate the pressure exhorted on the pads of her feet. Brooke groans tepidly - it’s almost mute, can barely be heard above the car honking a lane away from them - and Vanessa is pulling away as quickly as she’d led them together, hands gravitating instead towards Brooke’s waist. 

Her fingers knot themselves in the sweat dampened fabric of Brooke’s shirt, and Brooke briefly wants to tell her not to do so, needs to tell her to stop; the thought shatters to dust when Vanessa’s looking up at her like she doesn’t care, as if she’s just happy to have Brooke there, in the flesh, hanging off of her arm and her every word. 

“Rough flight?”. Vanessa questions, sympathy evident. 

Rolling her eyes, albeit dramatically, Brooke nods her head. Vanessa is manoeuvring them once more, then, opens the trunk of her car for Brooke to lift her suitcase into, closes it afterward and directs Brooke to the passenger seat. Brooke sits gladly, allows the muscles in her thighs, her spine and the entirety of her body to relax as Vanessa kick starts the engine, switches to an offbeat radio station that Brooke doesn’t recognise.

“Just a bit-“. Brooke snickers.

“-It’s a story and a half, how long’ve you got?”. She teases. 

Blinking once, smile tugging at the corners of her lips, Vanessa shrugs.

“As long as ‘ya need”. 

***** 

It takes Brooke until halfway into their journey to Vanessa’s apartment to vent her frustrations adequately.

Vanessa listens intently - it’s an attribute Brooke’s grown to admire, how she can talk talk talk but then flip a switch, give Brooke her undivided attention - and keeps her eyes trained on the roads of the highways that stretch out in front of them akin to taffy. She allows Brooke to rest a tensed hand on her thigh, squeezes it every so often when they reach a stop light and she can afford to take her grip off of the wheel. 

It keeps Brooke grounded, means that she feels less like a feather that’s going to float off with every gust of wind that barrels towards them, send her back to Toronto on the next available flight. She taps her nails across Vanessa’s knuckles, releases them when she has to and interlinks them once more when Vanessa smiles encouragingly, tells her that there’s a bottle of water tucked behind her seat, if she wants it.

Brooke does, and is grateful for it the moment that she twists open said bottle, the crackling of plastic snapping in her ears and cool, iced water trickling down her throat. She swallows eagerly, sighs in relief when she pulls away and slots the near half empty bottle into the cup holder between herself and Vanessa, blushes at Vanessa’s noticeably raised eyebrow. 

“ _What_?”. Brooke chuckles, wipes at her lips. 

“Nothing”. Vanessa smiles, fixes herself. 

She keeps her eyes trained on the road ahead of her, then, her brow furrowed in concentration. Brooke watches her attentively, eyes blazing, burning, threatening to crumble to ashes when Vanessa pulls onto a street that’s quieter, slower, is turning to face Brooke once more. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip - Brooke mirrors her, it’s hard not to - and mulls over her words with a newfound cautiousness. 

“I uh, told my mom we’d go to this dinner thing she’s doing tonight-”. Vanessa addresses.

“-Super chill and whatever, couple of family and friends before actual New Years tomorrow, but she really wants to meet ‘ya-“. She pauses once more. 

“- _I_ really want her to meet _you_ ”. Vanessa purses her lips. 

Twisting her body in order to face Vanessa, Brooke stumbles. She doesn’t know what to say, can’t put the words circulating her mind into an order that makes the tiniest bit of sense. They’re all split up, broken apart, jumbled in a way that has Brooke blanching, cheeks paling and forehead crinkling. She scowls out of the window, mists up the glass with her breath, and diverts her gaze back to Vanessa after inhaling, exhaling, inhaling. 

She’s beaming at her, as encouragingly as ever, and Brooke wishes that she wouldn’t because she can’t concentrate on anything when Vanessa blinks up at her, pulls into the driveway of her apartment and switches off the engine of the car. The silence is deafening, maddening; Brooke’s never been as invested in somebody as she is Vanessa, has never allowed herself to be put in the situation of meeting the parents. 

It’s terrifying - she knows it shouldn’t be, this is Vanessa - and her palms are back to sweating, goosebumps forming on her heated thighs beneath the fabric of her pants. She still wants to rip them off, doesn’t care to tear them, and she contemplates doing so when Vanessa is grasping her hand as tightly as she thinks is possible, squeezing, _pleading_. 

“Look-“. Vanessa starts. 

“-I fuckin’ know you, and know shit like this isn’t high up on the list of stuff Brooklyn is ecstatic about, but _Jesus_ , heaven be damned if I don’t get my two favourite women to meet while your ass is here”. She pouts. 

She grins up at Brooke like she already knows Brooke’s answer - it’s in her eyes, her soft smile that’s only grown with each of Vanessa’s hushed words - and leans across the centre console of the car in order to get closer still. Her knee presses against the outside of Brooke’s thigh, skin on fabric that Brooke can’t wait to peel herself out of. She nudges gently, tenderly; Brooke lifts a lethargic hand to cup Vanessa’s cheek, brushes her thumb across her gloss coated bottom lip. 

The action leaves a smudge, a barely there fingerprint in said gloss that Brooke works quickly to mask, takes it upon herself to blend the gloss out further, pad it into the curl of Vanessa’s smirk. She shakes her head to herself - Vanessa has her wrapped around her finger, she knows it, couldn’t not - and is humming her willingness quicker than she’d initially anticipated, is gravitating like a magnet towards the affection that blooms outwards from Vanessa’s chest.

“Your favourite?-”. Brooke’s smug, Vanessa thinks that she has every right to be.

“-I’m your favourite?-“. She prods. 

Removing the keys from the ignition of the car, Vanessa’s cheeks blaze. They’re aflame with honesty, a transparency that Brooke wishes she could channel when the other woman nods bashfully, fidgets with tossing her car keys from one hand to the other. Brooke watches with a restrained laughter as she drops them once, twice, leaves them on the ground at her feet when she does so the third time, opts for taking Brooke’s free hand and tapping her knuckles in lieu. 

“Mhm, yeah-“. Vanessa clears her throat. 

“- _Favourite_ ”. She grins.

Brooke thinks it might be her new favourite word, and is pulling Vanessa back to her once more the instant that it leaves her lips. Ruining Vanessa’s gloss becomes an afterthought, doesn’t become a thought at all when their lips meet - she wants it everywhere, her chin, lower - and she seeks to do so with each short peck that she places like a gift, every elongated brush that Vanessa holds onto.

There are hands on her thighs, hands on her shoulders and her cheeks, her waist and her neck, and they stay there until they don’t; Vanessa’s pulling away before Brooke has a chance to hoist her over into the passenger seat, have Vanessa’s body straddling her own, hot and impatient, needy and wanton. 

“Ok-“. Vanessa chuckles, grimaces with a nod to Brooke’s frame.

“-You might be my favourite, but you _really_ need a fuckin’ shower”. She snorts. 

There’s a beat of uncertainty, unknowing, but then they’re both laughing, cackling, Vanessa’s head tumbling to rest upon Brooke’s shoulder. She pulls away with a shriek, and Brooke doesn’t protest as Vanessa leads her out of the car and into her apartment. They abandon Brooke’s suitcase in the trunk of Vanessa’s car - she may or may not have locked it, neglects to remember - though Brooke finds that it’s irrelevant when her shirt is being discarded before they’ve made it to the bathroom, pants and underwear joining the trail of breadcrumbs that both herself and Vanessa leave. 

It’s madness, they shower.

Vanessa jokes about needing to get clean, not dirty. 

Brooke laughs, it’s familiar.

She’s her _favourite_. 

*****

Brooke hasn’t spent the holiday season in somewhere as warm as Florida since maybe her mid twenties.

It’s _boiling_. 

She emerges from the shower with Vanessa in tow, hot on her heels, and feels the washed off layers of sweat beginning to build under the heat of the atmosphere surrounding her once more. She barely makes it to Vanessa’s bed, all dark red bed sheets, before she’s throwing herself down atop of it, towel falling away from her chest unceremoniously. 

Vanessa watches her do so from the doorway - she’s looking at Brooke with a glint in her, one that’s refused to quell even after Brooke’s fingers had made her come twice, three times against the shower tiles - and is crossing the room to join her in wide, confident strides. Brooke welcomes her, allows Vanessa to drape herself across her body with an ease that’s tantalising, alluring, and is looping her arms loosely around Vanessa’s waist, slotting their legs together; the image of jigsaw pieces springs to Brooke’s mind, she wants to kick herself for the cliche.

The skin of Vanessa’s back that isn’t covered by the towel is warm, soft to the touch, and prickles with goosebumps wherever Brooke drags her fingertips. They’re cooling quickly - Vanessa had set the air conditioner to blast a temporary arctic throughout the bedroom - though Brooke still feels out of place, an ice cube that’s found itself simmering in a beam of Egyptian sun. 

It’s _boiling_ , to her. 

Vanessa is up and moving, is functioning more than Brooke knows that she will for the entirety of her vacation within minutes, and is tugging on her underwear, shorts, tank top. They’re not the ones that Vanessa had worn to the airport - Brooke knows that they’re still scattered memories across the maze of her apartment - and yet Brooke finds herself in as just as much awe as she had been then, drunk on the sudden presence of Vanessa after the weeks of withdrawals, longing, _needing_.

Brooke lays there, still. She remains stationary, unmoving, even as Vanessa crosses the room once more, perches herself delicately on the bed next to Brooke’s relaxed form. She coaxes Brooke’s head into her lap, feels the damp strands of hair sticking to her thighs, her fingers as she glides them through it. The smell of vanilla, lavender bounces between them, and Brooke is huffing out a sigh that shakes chest, causes her body to jerk and her instincts to bellow closer closer closer. 

She listens to them, has learnt not to ignore them, and nuzzles her head into Vanessa’s stomach as Vanessa peers down at her, brushes the pads of her thumbs across her untamed eyebrows. It’s a motion that’s relaxing to her - Vanessa had discovered as much during the first week of knowing Brooke, getting to know Brooke - and continues for as long as her shoulders remain tight, tense, tucked up to her chin.

“You know-“. Vanessa murmurs.

“-My momma’s ‘gonna love you. Even if you’re stressin’ your pretty ‘lil mind about it, she’s ‘gonna love you. _Trust_ ”. She soothes. 

Brooke trusts her. Inexplicably. She trusts her, but can’t shake the thought that Vanessa’s mom won’t adore her like she hopes that she will, won’t approve of her, won’t think that she’s good enough for Vanessa who Brooke believes deserves the universe and all of its counterparts. She does, unquestionably, is worth all of it and more, and Brooke knows logically that she can give it to her, prays that her mom knows that too; Vanessa’s telling her that she already does.

“On a scale of like, one to ten, I’m at a solid _this is my first time performing in an arena for a hundred thousand people plus_ levels of anxious right now”. Brooke chuckles.

Vanessa’s hands continue their ministrations - they tangle, weave, tug gently in order to calm Brooke - and she’s nodding her head slowly in understanding, contorting herself to veil Brooke’s lips with her own. Brooke hums into the kiss, barely there and overwhelmingly familiar, until Vanessa pulls away once more, scrutinises Brooke with a perplexed frown upon her face. 

“You’re full of surprises, anybody ever tell ‘ya that?”. Vanessa asks, eyebrow arched. 

“No, not really-“. Brooke bites at her tongue.

“-Always thought I was quite predictable, honestly”. She offers. 

_Predictable_. It’s a word that many have used to describe her - friends, relatives, colleagues - though she’s never been discouraged because of it. She’s always taken it as a positive, a character trait that’s allowed her to be definable, reliable, self assured enough. She continues thinking so right up until Vanessa shakes her head a second later, scoffs out a response that sits somewhere between an illegible grunt and a displeased realisation. 

“I don’t think so”. Vanessa points.

“Really?”. Brooke’s jaw hangs, Vanessa hums. 

“You’ll give presentations to your classes but won’t order at the drive through because it makes you nervous-“. Vanessa notes, begins smirking as Brooke’s cheeks pucker. 

“-And, don’t get me started on this one, you’ll fly to a different country on your own like a boss ass bitch for me but won’t correct somebody in a restaurant if they mess ‘ya order up”. She accuses, teasing tone evident in her voice. 

“I’m really struggling to see where you’re going with this”. Brooke deadpans. 

Her faux expression is futile - she’s grinning again before she’s able to stop herself, is curling into Vanessa’s touch - and covers Vanessa’s hand that’s moved to rest delicately on her cheek with her own. She squeezes, tells Vanessa that she knows with a singular nod of her head, and drops featherlight kisses to Vanessa’s wrist that hovers next to her lips. 

“You ‘wanna know the one I think is the funniest?-”. Vanessa taunts.

“-The fact that you’ll fuck me as good as you just did in the shower, dirty talk like I’ve never heard it comin’ out of your mouth like a waterfall, but then get scared about meeting my momma. I don’t see anything predictable about that. _Nothin_ ’ at all”. She finishes. 

Brooke gulps audibly.

Vanessa is right. Brooke doesn’t want her to be, has spent too long trying to create a map of herself to hand out to others, for each and every person surrounding her to be able to understand her ways without explanation. Vanessa is right in all that she says - Brooke is not predictable, is far from linear in her actions, her thoughts - and she’s looking down at Brooke like she doesn’t care either way; Vanessa’s telling her that _it’s ok, it’s ok, it’ll be ok_ when Brooke closes her eyes, groans out in frustration. 

“And what if she _doesn’t_ like me?”. Brooke proposes.

Vanessa shrugs nonchalantly. 

“Then ‘imma have to send you back to Canada”. She dramatises. 

Her response is one that Brooke couldn’t have predicted - maybe neither of them are predictable, Brooke is comforted by the thought - and then they’re laughing again, Brooke detangling herself from Vanessa so that she’s able to sit up cross legged, facing her directly on the bed. Her knees sink into the mattress, towel half wrapped around her body, half dangling onto the crimson sheets beneath her, and then she’s pulling Vanessa back to her, eyelashes fluttering closed against Vanessa’s temple.

_It’ll be ok._

*****

It _is_ ok, for the most part. 

They arrive at Vanessa’s moms house ten minutes later than they said they would - Brooke panics as soon as she knows they’re a second past their expected time, curses out the traffic one the highways - but Vanessa tells her not to worry, knows that her mom would have told her to get there earlier than the remainder of her family due to Vanessa’s tendency to run late; she tells Brooke as much as they pull into the gravelled driveway. 

It’s in the middle of the suburbs, somewhere. Brooke is certain that Vanessa had told her the name of the street, given her the low down on the neighbourhood and it’s goings on, but with her feet trudging up the pathway to the front door that towers over even her, her hand clutching tightly at Vanessa’s, it all seems like a waste of breath.

She can feel her throat bobbing, heart thudding, and squeezes at Vanessa’s hand tighter when the woman at her side presses twice on the doorbell that they can hear ring throughout the house from their stance on the porch, shuffles her feet against the welcome mat. Vanessa’s smiling at her, like usual, her eyes full of reassurance, understanding, empathy, and then the doors creaking open, old oak and hinges giving way to an embrace that engulfs the both of them immediately. 

Brooke struggles to breathe.

It’s not something that comes naturally to her. She finds herself unable to get her arms to function, return the embrace. They don’t work, remain unmoving at her sides, one intertwined with Vanessa’s. She registers herself mumbling a vague _hello_ as _nice to meet you’s_ fill the space between the three of them, before coos of _I’ve missed you_ that are directed towards Vanessa. 

None of it is Brooke’s territory. Her own parents are - they’re _fine_ , don’t compare to the relationship she has with Kameron - but Vanessa’s mom appears to be more, all encompassing, brimming with pride, body vibrating with love. It’s confusing; Brooke still doesn’t know what to do with herself even as she’s ushered into the entrance hallway, her arm snaking it’s way naturally around Vanessa’s waist. 

It’s nice.

Brooke calms.

Vanessa looks up towards her once more when the door closes behind them, casts a smile of assurance that Brooke is grateful for. She harnesses it close to herself, adjusts her hearing to the talking that’s evident in the background. There’s laughing, chuckling, intrigued conversation that Vanessa’s mom leads them directly towards, pauses at the doorway in order to address Brooke. 

“Alexis”. She beams, Brooke takes it as her name. 

“Brooklyn! Or just Brooke, or - I’m not picky”. Brooke fumbles. 

The surprise is evident in Alexis’ eyes soon as the introduction leaves Brooke’s lips - Brooke can feel the embarrassment creeping up into her cheeks before Vanessa’s nestling her head softly into her shoulder, a display of affection that doesn’t go unseen - and she doesn’t exhale until Alexis nods her head, gestures towards the both of them. 

“V’s told me all ‘bout you-”. Alexis confirms her suspicions with a smirk. 

“-Dancer Brooklyn who has my girls heart, hm?”. She checks.

Eyes widening, jaw clenching, Brooke watches the silent communication that ensues between Vanessa and her mom. They ogle back and forth at one and other, Vanessa shaking her head with a satisfied grin and her mom shrugging her shoulders. Brooke doesn’t understand it, knows that it’s going to be a while, forever before she does, but sets aside the time in order to do so when the woman that’s even shorter than Vanessa is pulling her down once more, crushing her bones and remoulding them into pieces of heart shaped confetti. 

“Pleased to meet ‘ya-”. Alexis’ expression is gleaming.

“-You’ll fit in _just_ fine around here, from what she’s told me”. She adds. 

Brooke smiles, and finds out that she does.

She gets along with Vanessa’s family, her family friends, interweaves herself with them effortlessly once the evening has begun, homemade food and drinks on tap. She doesn’t touch anything alcoholic - it’s a rarity for her, Vanessa nods approvingly as they clank their glasses of juice together - yet finds herself not needing it as she engages in conversations that she doesn’t have to pretend to enjoy; they thrill her, captivate her attention. 

Vanessa doesn’t remain stitched to her side throughout the night, either. She drifts in and out of conversations that Brooke finds herself having with Vanessa’s aunts, cousins that she tries but fails to remember the names of, and finds the concerns, the worries that she’d had at the beginning of the night drifting away, burning on the log fire that Vanessa’s mom has in her living room.

Her home is - it’s beautiful. Brooke commends Alexis on the job that’s she’s done singlehandedly, from the lilac walls of the living room to the Tiffany lamps she has dotted sporadically around each room on countertops, chests of drawers. It goes beyond being welcoming, becomes familiar to Brooke in a matter of hours when she curls up on one of the homes leather arm chairs, a chocolate that soothes her skin; she’s still excruciatingly warm despite the sun having gone down hours ago. 

She sits, on her own. It’s relaxing, feels normal. She’s able to see Vanessa from her position - she’s leant against the far wall, talking one of the few people that Brooke’s hasn’t gotten to, tall, blonde, touchy - and she keeps her eyes trained on her, feels her chest swelling inexplicably. Vanessa’s the only person left in the room as far as she’s concerned, hanging off of the arm of a man who she erases from her sight as quickly and as easily as a speck of dust.

Brooke knows that she’s in love. 

“ _So_ -“. Alexis is there, interjecting Brooke’s thoughts. 

“-You get to know everybody a ‘lil?”. She perches on the arm of the chair that Brooke’s curled up on. 

Brooke blinks, gapes in disbelief at the similarities between Vanessa and her mom. 

“Uh, yeah, mostly”. Brooke nods. 

_Mostly_. Her eyes don’t leave Vanessa. She’s giggling, laughing, barking out chuckles that Brooke’s able to hear from across the room. They make her smile to herself without restraint - Alexis catches her, looks on knowingly - but Brooke can’t stop the detour her vision makes to the man that she’s latched onto. They’re in each other’s space, faces so close that Brooke doesn’t doubt they’re going cross eyed; she can’t work it out, wants to know, needs to know, feels the unwarranted jealously bubbling in her gut. 

“That guy?-”. Alexis nods towards Vanessa and _him_. 

“-He’s Matt, a real sweetheart. They dated back in college, y’know”. She winks.

Brooke likes Vanessa’s mom. She _does_. She likes her, but not when she’s giving Brooke information that she could have lived without. They used to date. They dated back in college. It was a long time ago - Brooke’s not stupid, she knows platonic bonds can be formed, fused over time - but she finds herself narrowing her eyes regardless, focusing and honing in on Vanessa’s nails that dig into the mans, Matt’s bicep.

“Dated?”. Brooke bites back a grimace.

“Oh, yeah, for like, however long, can’t remember. Not important, angel”. Alexis grins. 

She pats a hand across Brooke’s back, then, is bidding farewell to the first group of people to abandon ship for the night before Brooke’s able to question her further, is guiding them towards the door as Brooke is left to tend to the chains of her own thoughts. 

Brooke trusts Vanessa. 

She trusts her more than most people, would go as far as saying more than anybody, but the tightness in Brooke’s chest doesn’t ease for the remainder of the night, until Vanessa’s draping herself across Brooke’s lap, telling her they should go home. She trusts Vanessa, she does, but keeps a sturdy, protective arm around her waist as they bid each family member goodbye before the clock hits eleven in the evening, transforms her touch into a possessive hand on thigh as Vanessa begins the drive back to her apartment. 

Brooke digs in her nails, remains silent throughout - Vanessa doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed anything as hot. 

***** 

They sit inches apart on the edge of Vanessa’s couch a half an hour or so later. 

Brooke feels like she could bottle up the tension in the air, it’s thick, dense, she could be chocking and not know it. Vanessa doesn’t look like she’s doing much better. She’s sat impatiently, nails tapping at her own knees and toes curled into the carpet at her feet. Brooke wants to know - she has questions, needs answers, maybe - but Vanessa’s already ahead of her, is turning to straddle Brooke unexpectedly. 

Her thighs grip around Brooke’s hips, push her back into the dent of the couch that cups their spines. Brooke feels the relief - it’s instant, having Vanessa there, on her, not him after the duration of the night - and she’s humming thankfully, a soft smirk prevalent on her face. 

“You ‘wanna tell me what’s gotten into you?.” Vanessa teases. 

She already knows, Brooke is more than aware of the fact that she does, but she asks the question regardless of her pre existing knowledge, presses her hands to Brooke’s chest. She feels the inhales, the exhales beneath her palms, and Brooke drops her head, begins kissing up the expanse of Vanessa’s neck, teeth grazing at her pulse point.

“ _No_ ”. Brooke husks.

“Hm, sure-“. Vanessa drawls, leans into Brooke’s touch. 

“-You don’t even ‘wanna tell me about how I was right about my momma loving you after all?”. She drags her fingers down Brooke’s cheeks. 

“Maybe-”. Reasons Brooke. 

“-Maybe not”. She continues.

They’re playing a game that has no end. Brooke sees it in the mischief in Vanessa’s eyes and the thighs that clamp down around her own, the soft grind of Vanessa’s hips. It’s clear in the way that her gaze doesn’t waver, remains focused and with intent when Brooke pulls back, plants her hands firmly on the muscles of Vanessa’s back. They tense momentarily - Brooke tries to memorise how they contort, relax - before Brooke hoists her closer.

Vanessa didn’t think it possible, but Brooke proves her wrong, continues to prove her wrong when she manoeuvres them so that they’re laid down across the length of the couch. Brooke remains situated atop of Vanessa, slots their legs together with an elegant clumsiness that shouldn’t work but does, and swallows the whine that escapes Vanessa’s throat. 

“Or, you know what you could tell me?”. Vanessa has one jibe left. 

“Please, enlighten me”. Brooke presses her knee between Vanessa’s legs. 

“You _could_ tell me-“. Vanessa chokes out a moan. 

“-Why you, got so fuckin’ jealous over me talkin’ to Matt tonight”. She snickers.

It comes out shakily, despite her best efforts to deliver it with conviction. Brooke doesn’t care - she appreciates the effort that Vanessa puts in to trying to keep her composure - and is shaking her head dismissively, bracketing her arms either side of Vanessa’s head. Her hair falls in cascades around them, and Vanessa brushes it away half heartedly, gasps when Brooke shakes her head once more, presses her knee harder, deeper. 

“I’m not jealous-”. Brooke whispers.

Brooke knows that she’s definitely in love. 

“-I’m _not_ jealous”. She repeats herself.

Only she is.

Vanessa knows it. 

Their lips come together before either are able to speak further. Vanessa doesn’t have anything left to say, though Brooke would bet money on her having spiel after spiel ready to spill at the drop of a hat if it came down to it. She presses herself back down against Brooke’s knee with an energy that tells Brooke exactly what she needs to know; Vanessa likes this, likes the streak of jealously that Brooke’s able to feel coursing through her veins, pouring out in her words and her actions. 

Vanessa’s hands slip themselves beneath the hem of Brooke’s shirt, crawl up her toned torso until they reach her breasts where she grabs, twists, pinches, has Brooke keening into her mouth despite herself. Brooke adores it, falls deeper into the feeling of Vanessa, briefly, though forces herself to separate the both of them when she feels her restraints falling, Vanessa’s hands grappling with the zipper of her pants. 

_No_. 

“Bed”. Brooke growls. 

“Get off me, then”. Vanessa smirks. 

Huffing, restless and discontent, Brooke lifts herself off of the couch. She leaves Vanessa behind - she doesn’t need Vanessa to guide her to the bedroom, knows where it is, can get herself there as Vanessa follows obediently - and only registers her once more when they’ve drawn the curtains, dimmed the lights and ditched their clothes. 

They stand in the centre of the room, hard wood floors beneath their bare feet, limbs hooked around each other’s bodies and hands grappling for anything they’re able to reach. Brooke is slouched, her spine curving in order to meet Vanessa’s lips that are relentless in their quest for Brooke, everything that she has to give; Vanessa will take it, she’s greedy and needs it, Brooke knows. 

Brooke walks slowly, then, corners Vanessa until her back is pressed against the cool brick of her bedroom wall. The bitter contrast makes Vanessa jolt, and Brooke chuckles darkly, lifts Vanessa by the undersides of her thigh until Vanessa’s able to look her ankles at the base of Brooke’s spine. It means that they’re even closer - Vanessa keeps getting proven wrong, she wants it to keep happening - and they’re groaning into each other’s open mouths, breaths panting and eyes scrunched tightly closed. 

“Let me fuck you”. Brooke pleads, demands. 

Vanessa gives her all of the consent that she needs. 

“Yeah? You want that?”. Brooke prods. 

Nodding her head, Vanessa whines out a _yes_. It’s high and forced, affected and so Vanessa that Brooke wants to scream. She thinks that maybe she does, somewhere in the back of mind, but then Vanessa is blinking her eyes open sheepishly, cowering under Brooke’s scrutiny that burns through her skull and the wall, out to her car in the driveway that reflects an orange light through the mesh of the curtains.

“I uh-“. Vanessa clears her throat. 

“-I have a strap on, if you _really_ ‘wanna fuck me”. She blushes. 

“Are you saying I need a strap on to _really_ fuck you?”. Brooke checks.

She knows that it’s not what Vanessa’s saying. Vanessa is offering her everything. She’s giving her the control that she knows that Brooke needs, is granting her all that she wants and more; Vanessa’s telling Brooke that she can fuck her, have her beneath her, squirming, a privilege that she knows nobody else in Vanessa’s life has.

Brooke wants it - she still teases her. 

“ _Oh_ no-“. Vanessa nibbles at her bottom lip, licks her tongue across her top. 

“-I _know_ you don’t, but I know you want to”. She drops her legs from Brooke’s waist. 

She reads Brooke like a book, page after page. Brooke hates it, but loves it, is nodding her confirmation into the microscopic space between them that becomes even less when she switches their positions once more, walks Vanessa backwards until her legs give way to the mattress. Brooke stays standing, juts out a hip as Vanessa directs her to the drawer beneath her bed; Brooke spends longer than she should ghosting a tip of a finger across different dildos and vibrators as Vanessa writhes on the bed before she locates the strap on. 

She puts it on.

It’s nothing groundbreaking, nothing Brooke hasn’t used on other women before, but the sight of the harness tightened around her thighs, her hips, has Vanessa’s eyes blown out before she’s even begun. She kneels on the bed, crawls towards Vanessa with a smirk as she takes a hair tie from her wrist, scrapes her hair back messily. She misses out pieces at the front - they fall into her eyes, Vanessa brushes them away for her - and she watches on intently as Vanessa waits for her, silently begs for Brooke to do something, _anything_.

She does. 

Leaning forward, she crowds into Vanessa’s space once more. Their legs slot together effortlessly, head of the strap on bumping against Vanessa’s inner thigh. The graze causes Vanessa to twitch beneath her - Brooke picks up on it, wouldn’t be able to miss it if she tried - and she’s hooking her legs around Brooke’s waist, digging her heels into the muscles of Brooke’s back as she fights to keep herself upright.

Vanessa is kissing at her neck, mumbling _pleases_ and _I need you’s_ into her collarbones, tugging at Brooke’s earlobe with her teeth. It has Brooke shaking above her, arms giving way when Vanessa trails a hand between their bodies - skin on skin on skin - and grasps feebly at the strap on. The sight is crazy; Brooke didn’t think the sight of Vanessa’s lithe fingers wrapped around the purple silicone would do it for her as much as it does. 

“Thought you were ‘gonna fuck me?”. Vanessa banters, eyes clouded over with lust.

Surging forward, Brooke cuts her off. She connects their lips, licks into Vanessa’s mouth until Vanessa’s reduced to unintelligible whimpers, groans and whines that Brooke takes down. She tugs at Vanessa’s bottom lip, too, bumps their noses together in a way that reminds Brooke of how close they are. They’re pressed chest to chest - Brooke’s using Vanessa’s hip to grind the strap on against, feels no shame because of it - and Brooke chuckles when she pulls away to face a desperate Vanessa.

She wants this, and Brooke does too, but Brooke has always prided herself in being the more patient of the two in most regards. She’s proven right when Vanessa drags a finger across her own clit, pelvis jutting off of the mattress. Brooke tells her no, _no_ , though Vanessa doesn’t listen, continues to glide her fingers through the wetness that’s pooling at her entrance, streaking down her thighs. It’s a sight; Brooke goes beyond the point of being worked up, wants Vanessa then and there. 

“Oh-“. Brooke nods.

“-I will”. She smirks -

\- and then Vanessa _listens_. 

Brooke is making her way down the length of Vanessa’s body, heated silicone of the strap on gliding along with her. It brushes against her hip, and then her thighs, but doesn’t go to where Vanessa needs it. Brooke’s mouth gets there first, beats it to the finish line, and begins pressing kisses everywhere. She plants them on her hip bones, she outer swells of her hips that Brooke still finds enchanting, and makes her way slowly, excruciatingly slowly, to Vanessa’s clit. 

Her lips wrap around it, suck briefly before halting seconds later. The momentary relief followed by the lack of pressure has Vanessa whining, eyes filling with tears. It’s painful, too much, too little - she needs Brooke on her, inside of her, fingers, mouth, god damn strap on - and she’s whining pathetically, fisting one hand in Brooke’s messily tied hair and the other in the bed sheets at her side.

“I swear to god”. Vanessa breathes, shakes her head. 

“What’re you ‘gonna do about it?”. Brooke goads. 

She slips two fingers inside of Vanessa.

Vanessa moans openly.

Brooke knows what she likes - Vanessa tells Brooke that she can read her like a book but knows that Brooke can do the same in return - and is curling her fingers upwards, hooking them tactically. Vanessa is panting into the open air by the time that Brooke’s mouth heads back towards her clit, tongue flicking, sucking, and she’s both trying and failing to keep her eyes locked with Brooke’s. 

Challenging her, Brooke cocks an eyebrow. She knows that Vanessa has it in her, to hold off longer than she thinks that she’s capable of, but grows doubtful when Vanessa clenches her thighs, walls tightening around Brooke’s fingers. Brooke pulls her mouth off of her once more, and Vanessa’s about to protest before Brooke replaces it with her thumb, rubs in rhythmic circles.

“Already?”. Brooke taunts.

She paints her face with a smirk, pushes her fingers deeper still when Vanessa nods her head, tilts her hips upwards into Brooke’s touch. She’s going to come, already - Brooke isn’t stopping, she doesn’t want her to - and is chanting out Brooke’s name in a mantra, begging, pleading with her to keep going.

Brooke does, and doesn’t relent until Vanessa’s thrusting comes to a stop, her eyes snapping shut and choked off moan getting caught in her throat. She’s hot, tight and wet around Brooke’s fingers. Brooke can feel the base of the strap on rubbing subtly against her own clit, can tell how wet she is without casting a hand down; Brooke doesn’t give her upwards of ten seconds to catch her breath before she’s flipping her, positioning Vanessa so that she lays sprawled on her front. 

Her hair is tousled, stuck to her neck and back with sweat, excitement, and Brooke brushes it away for her, kisses across her neck and shoulders as she grasps at her hips. She lifts Vanessa up so that her chest is pressed into the bed sheets, hips elevated and legs spread out. Brooke can’t believe her eyes - Vanessa looks like that, because of her, for her - and is pulling Vanessa’s hips back so that they bump against her own, strap on poking at her thigh once more. 

Vanessa wants it.

She’s still whining, despite not having fully caught her breath, is burying her face into the mattress, clutching at the pillow beneath her head before Brooke weaves a hand into her hair, tugs until Vanessa is sat upright, body arched like a bow. Vanessa’s eyes flash, flicker, but then she’s grinning, is giggling into Brooke’s mouth that kisses her tenderly, whispers sweet nothings that keep her grounded. 

“Tell me to stop at any point and I’ll stop, ok? This is all your call”. Brooke assures.

It could go unsaid, but Vanessa is thankful for the moment of honesty that’s laid bare between them, the softness that coats Brooke’s voice like thick honey. It’s sweet, Vanessa thinks, and she’s nodding her head in understanding, kissing Brooke once more before she’s being pushed back down into the bed, flat palm on her back pressing and pressing and pressing. 

She’s open to Brooke, vulnerable and pliant beneath her in a way that Brooke’s never experienced before. She looks like a dish that Brooke wants to devour, sink her teeth into, and she toes when she leans across Vanessa’s back, brushes her hair to one side so that she’s able to connect her lips to Vanessa’s neck as she lines the tip of the strap on up with her entrance. 

Brooke pumps her hips forwards slowly - she knows what she’s doing, has Vanessa’s trust in the palm of her hand - and gauges Vanessa’s reaction. She squirms, pants, cants her hips backwards when Brooke doesn’t give her enough immediately, takes all that she can get. The full length of it is nestled inside of her by the time that Brooke allows herself to breathe; Vanessa’s brow is furrowed in concentration, and Brooke watches the obscene sight of Vanessa’s squeezing down experimentally on the toy. 

“Alright?”. Brooke checks.

“ _Oh_ -“. Vanessa moans.

“-Yeah, keep goin’”. She responds.

Brooke isn’t about to deny her of the pleasure that she can tell Vanessa needs like oxygen, and nods her head once before grasping at Vanessa’s hips. Her hold is crushing, strong in a way that keeps Vanessa tethered to reality, to Brooke, and she slides half way out before thrusting back in again, the slap of skin intoxicating to her ears. 

Mewling, Vanessa spreads her legs further. Brooke doesn’t think it’s possible, but she does it anyway - Brooke remembers that she’s a dancer, she can move - and allows a confident smirk to bloom on her face at the reaction she gets from Vanessa. It’s a combination of the change of angle and the depth at which Brooke snaps her hips, the hand that she wraps around Vanessa’s body in order to rub precisely at her clit.

The combined ministrations render Vanessa incapable of forming legible sentences. She calls out Brooke’s name in broken syllables, tells her that she’s going to come, again, in breathy huffs and incoherent mumbles. Brooke listens, knows that she’s close, understands that Vanessa’s going to come from the way that she’s clenching around the toy, wetness dripping to the bed sheets beneath them. 

Brooke knows that she herself isn’t far behind. She can already feel the impending orgasm that’s going to come by the stroke of her own fingers the instant that she unbuckles the harness, tosses it to the floor, and encourages Vanessa with forceful pecks to her shoulders and neck that she knows for a fact are going to transform into bruises over night. 

It’s exactly what happens.

Vanessa comes with a cry, tears streaming down her cheeks at the intensity of the pleasure. They land amongst the bedsheets, her folded arms beneath her head, and Brooke ensures to pull out gently, guides Vanessa to her back before ridding herself of the harness. She comes as quickly as she’d predicted, sharp and fulfilling against her own fingers, moans exhaled directly into Vanessa’s mouth. 

Vanessa keeps taking it.

*****

They fall asleep, briefly, and Brooke awakens to an already alert Vanessa nestled into her side. 

Her chin rests on her chest, hypnotic eyes searching Brooke’s expression for a response to a question that Brooke misses. She’s still out of it - her body aches, a little, vision adjusting to the dim bedside lamp - and she combs a hand through Vanessa’s still tangled hair, licks at her drying lips, kicks away the duvet cover that feels too heavy atop her body.

Vanessa has a leg thrown across her waist, has a hand creeping up towards her ribs, tickling and pinching lightly, and Brooke huffs out a laugh that comes as a surprise to both of them. The room is a mess - Brooke’s able to spot articles of clothing strewn across the floors though none of it makes a comprehensive outfit - and she notes that the air still smells of sex, Vanessa’s vanilla perfume, her shampoo.

Brooke inhales deeply.

“ _Hi_ ”. She breathes, scratches her nails across Vanessa’s scalp.

Vanessa leans into her touch, eyes fluttering closed against Brooke’s bare chest. She sighs contentedly, mouths a low hi in return that Brooke barely manages to hear; it’s so quiet that she thinks she might have imagined it until Vanessa is pushing herself up to peck Brooke’s lips, her cheeks, her jaw. 

“Didn’t know you had that in ‘ya”. Vanessa grins. 

“Who do you take me for?”. Brooke widens her eyes mockingly. 

She’s joking, understands what Vanessa means from the glint in her eye and her fleeting glance towards the floor where the strap on still lays discarded. _I didn’t know you had that in you._ Brooke knew, but knew that it was different for them, a foreign dynamic between herself and Vanessa that they’d barely touched upon before, their emotions overcoming their logic, arguably.

“I ain’t complaining”. Vanessa shrugs happily, folds herself back into the security of Brooke’s arms.

They shield her better than the duvet, keep her warmer and cooler and more comforted than any others that she’s ever known, and she tells Brooke as much through a delicate kiss to her shoulder. Brooke reciprocates it, kisses the top of Vanessa’s head tenderly, a contrast to the tugging that she knows Vanessa’s hair had endured hours prior; she wants to apologise but doesn’t when Vanessa grins at her like she can see the cogs turning in Brooke’s mind.

Brooke thinks that maybe she can.

“You should flirt with your exes more often if this is the result”. Brooke deadpans.

She’s joking but she’s not. Vanessa catches the sarcasm in her voice, the hint of disappointment and confusion that laces it. _You should flirt with your exes more often_. Vanessa wants to correct her, wants to scream no, set the scratched record straight, but then Brooke is smiling, silently telling Vanessa not to worry about it. Vanessa frowns regardless, gazes up at Brooke. 

“You talkin’ about Matt?-”. Vanessa questions, receives a short not in advance.

“-Baby, he’s gay, married to that other tall blonde guy that was at my mommas tonight. You didn’t think that - _oh_ , you _did_ ”. Vanessa halts, realisation dawning. 

Blinking up towards the ceiling, Brooke shakes her head with a chuckle. He’s _gay_ , he’s married, _Vanessa_ is gay. She doesn’t have to worry, she tells herself, wants to kick herself for ever doubting Vanessa’s intentions when she’d opened up her home for her, had taken her to introduce her to her mom, her support network that Brooke thinks spans half of the state of Florida. 

“Damn-“. Brooke sighs.

“-Well, _I_ feel like an idiot”. She giggles, tightens her arms around Vanessa. 

Vanessa rolls her eyes - Brooke watches her with a light heart, a pleasantly churning stomach - and props herself up on her elbow once more, eyes beaming directly down into Brooke’s. She drags her thumb across Brooke’s eyebrows, as disheveled as they’ve ever been, and revels in the feeling of Brooke’s eyelashes brushing against her knuckles. 

“You really think I’d fly you all the way out here and let you fuck me that good just to, I don’t know-”. Vanessa mulls over her words.

“-I love _you_ , I ain’t gonna jeopardise that for anything”. She concludes, presses her thumb to Brooke’s lips. 

_I love you._

Brooke can’t believe her ears. She’s been thinking it for months, hasn’t dared tell a soul with the exception of Kameron, and Monét at the studio when she had pestered her. _I love you_. It hangs in the air akin to smoke above them, doesn’t dissipate even as Vanessa connects their lips, kisses Brooke like she means it; Brooke guesses that she does, because she loves her, and Brooke loves her right back, is in love with her. 

_I love you_.

Brooke pulls away grinning, and tells her.

_I love you._

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they both move to California three months later after wrapping things up in their respective home towns, tying off loose ends that they needn’t revisit, they celebrate Brooke’s birthday with takeout pizza on the floor of their new apartment. It’s hot, stuffy - no more so than Florida, Brooke argues - and they prop the windows open with stacks of old books that had sat untouched on Brooke’s bookshelf for over a handful of years, allow their balcony doors to swing back and forth in the humid breeze.
> 
> Vanessa sits with her legs outstretched across Brooke’s lap, Henry at her side with her toes curled into the woven rug that they’d taken from Vanessa’s old apartment. Brooke keeps one arm loosely wrapped around Vanessa’s back as she works her way through said pizza, wipes her greasy fingertips on the sun kissed skin of Vanessa’s thighs; it’s a joke, Vanessa laughs, pecks her on the lips through the laughter that refuses to die down even as the sun falls from the sky, casts them in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it!! This is just an uber fluffy and shorter final ch to tie things off. I’ve loved writing this, and the feedback and support has been truly heartwarming. I won’t ramble (even though we all know I’m good at that) but I just wanted to say a big thank you!!
> 
> Stay tuned for more branjie coming soon!

A year passes. 

Brooke is smoking a cigarette out of her bedroom window sometime in the middle of January, her bed sheets wrapped loosely around her body as she perches on the windowsill. The air is still cold, frigid, though not as bad as it had been throughout the entirety of December, and she’s grateful for as much when a gust of wind blows her way.

It makes her shiver. Goosebumps form on her bare legs, her arms, and centre on her back that straightens with discomfort. She repositions her legs, crosses one over the other, and works her way through the remainder of her half smoked cigarette before extinguishing it in the lid of a candle jar that she keeps on her bedside table for that exact purpose. 

She doesn’t know when exactly she had started doing it; Vanesa had suggested it off handedly once when Brooke had tossed the burnt out stubs out of the ground floor window, watched it land in the earth of a plant pot bellow. Brooke had argued that she _owned_ them, it didn’t matter, but Vanessa had scalded her, albeit jokingly, had popped the lid off of a candle in the lounge and handed it to Brooke with a wink.

Brooke smiles at the memory. It’s one that sticks out to her - Vanessa goes beyond the point of being a positive influence, is one that she can’t recall having to live without - and she rises from her position on the windowsill. Reaching to close the window with a slam to click the lock, Brooke pads lazily towards the doorway of her bedroom. 

It’s already open, ajar from faint breeze still circulating, and she walks through it still in a sleep dazed stupor, her feet becoming accustomed to the icy creak of the floorboards. She makes her way down the corridor and towards the kitchen, clutches aforementioned bed sheets tighter to her body as she nears the room, the distinct noise of pans and cutlery clacking filling her ears. 

It smells like eggs - they’re being scrambled in a pan on the stove - and toast that Brooke knows will be on the wrong side of burnt, but finds herself not caring when she glances across the room, spots her kitten Henry sniffing at the leg of one of her barstools. The sight is heartwarming; Brooke’s bending to lift him into her arms, nuzzles into the softness of his fur as her purrs into her chest, licks at her thumb that she strokes across his whiskers.

An unrestrained grin spreads across her face, ear to ear, and she strides over to the small breakfast bar with Henry still tucked under her arm, a portion of her blankets falling to cover his body. He’s barely the size of half her forearm, and she’s pressing kiss after kiss to the suppleness of his head, cooing his praises as a plate is put down softly in front of her, knife and fork following shortly after. 

Brooke lifts her gaze. 

Vanessa’s there, too, is looking down at Brooke and Henry like they own every shred of her heart - Vanessa will attest that they do - and is pouring out two cups of steaming, black coffee. She adds milk, spills a drop onto the counter that Brooke wipes away with a swipe, cradles her _B_ mug in her hands to absorb all of the warmth that she can get. Vanessa chuckles, and sits once she’s slotted the bottle of milk back in to its respective place in the fridge, reaches instantly for her own _V_ mug once she’s sat down opposite Brooke.

Brooke exhales a _thank you_ \- taps her nails across the porcelain of the mug that Vanessa’s mom had bought for them during Christmas - and brushes her feet up against Vanessa’s shins. Vanessa recoils; Brooke knows that her skin rivals the cold of the ice that covers her driveway outside, the sheen of frost that she’s going to have to brush off of her car windscreen. 

It’s a Sunday, which means she doesn’t have much to do. She eats her breakfast leisurely as Vanessa rambles aimlessly, tells her about the new tour that she’s got coming up with an urban dance company, about how she wants to drag Brooke back to bed, spend the day lounging around, skin on skin on skin beneath blankets. Brooke doesn’t stop her from reeling onwards, listens intently to Vanessa’s words that she can’t get enough of, and almost agrees to her suggestions until -

\- reality becomes a factor. 

It’s not possible. She’s due to take Vanessa to the airport by the time that the afternoon rolls around, and despite her persistent want to disregard the looming inevitability, remain in blissful limbo with Vanessa for as long as the universe will allow, she knows that it can’t happen. It can’t, but it _should_ , and she tells Vanessa as much through a mouthful of toast, crumbs falling to her chin.

Vanessa chuckles lowly at her, reaches across the countertop between them in order to brush them away, cups Brooke’s cheek with her palm after she’s done so. She strokes idly, hums when Brooke drops her head into her touch, kisses gently at Vanessa’s thumb. Grinning, Vanessa pulls away, chugs down the rest of her coffee in gulps that tell Brooke Vanessa needs it more than she thought.

The coffee is strong but Vanessa is stronger, Brooke thinks, and it’s why she’s nudging her own cup out of reach of Vanessa’s fingers before she’s able to make a grasp for it, swallow down what’s left that Brooke hasn’t drank. Sighing into the air surrounding them, Brooke presses their legs together once more, hooks her ankle with Vanessa’s that twitches against her touch.

“I _knew_ you didn’t sleep well”. Brooke soothes. 

Vanessa didn’t. She’d fought the exhaustion for the entirety of the night, had drifted in and out of an irksome slumber with a naked Brooke pressed against her, arms intertwined and breath on the back of her neck. Brooke had snored peacefully, had only awoken sporadically to a rustling Vanessa, switching positions, seeking out any rough minutes of sleep she could get her hands on. 

It didn’t turn out to be many. 

Vanessa had given up by the time that the sun had risen, had detached and detangled herself from Brooke, pulled on a mismatched set of shorts and sweatshirt and made her way to the kitchen. She’d sat at the breakfast bar for an hour, maybe, had worked her way through three cups of coffee before she’d even heard Brooke rise from bed, crank open the bedroom window for her morning cigarette.

She’d made them breakfast - she needed a distraction, multiple if possible - and had waited not so patiently for Brooke to drag herself to the kitchen. She’d done so, eventually, had slinked in clad in merely a crumpled bedsheet, had scooped up Henry on her way and in turn made sure to drain any ounce of anxiety from Vanessa’s body.

“Sorry-“. Vanessa huffs, braces her elbows against the countertop. 

“-Just, y’know, you know how it is”. She relents. 

Brooke _does_. 

It’s been a year, _over_ a year, and instead of the constant distance getting easier like Brooke had initially thought it would, it’s only proven to become more challenging. They’re never in the same city, never in the same country when Vanessa is touring, and Brooke finds herself hanging on to every text that they send each other, every phone call that they manage to schedule in between conflicting schedules and alternating time zones that never align. 

Brooke doesn’t know what she had expected. She knew when they swapped numbers for the first time, knew when Vanessa first flew to Canada to visit her and understood even more when she spent New Years with Vanessa and her family in Florida. She had known, and still does know, because of the persistent ache in her gut that lasts for however long she’s away from Vanessa for; Vanessa is leaving in a matter of hours and Brooke’s not going to get to see her until her birthday. 

In _March_.

Brooke sighs, nods her head. They’ve compromised thus far, visiting one and other when they’ve had the time, the resources to do so, have gone as far as meeting half way in a Virginian hotel for a week the summer prior when they’d both scrounged time off of work. It had been a safe haven crafted by the both of them - a haven of cramped hotel showers, questionably comfortable mattresses - but it had been theirs, and Brooke misses it more than she’s able to comprehend. 

Vanessa feels like she’s at breaking point.

“I’m ‘gonna go pack”. Vanessa mutters, drops a distant peck to Brooke’s shoulder.

Brooke remains silent, watches Vanessa stalk out of the kitchen and finishes the rest of her coffee with a grimace. 

She reaches for another cup. 

*****

They drive to the airport at two in the afternoon, Vanessa’s suitcase an omen in the trunk of the car.

Brooke has the radio playing loud enough to power over the both of them - she doesn’t want to talk, Vanessa doesn’t want to have to listen - and they’re content sitting there, neglecting to hum along until Vanessa grows restless, knee jerking in the passenger seat. She turns to Brooke with a sigh, garners the majority of Brooke’s attention when she’s moving to rest her hand high up on Brooke’s thigh, facial expression remaining neutral. 

It’s bright outside - the sun reflects off of the rear view mirror, bounces off of Vanessa’s tanned skin - and Brooke casts a fleeting glance towards her when she’s certain that the road is safe enough. She smiles, as warm as the rays beating down upon them despite the occasional speck of snow still falling, and squeezes reassuringly at Vanessa’s hand. 

“I’m sorry”. Vanessa tries tepidly.

Brooke’s hand clutches tighter.

“ _What_? I - ‘Ness, What are you sorry for?”. Brooke stutters. 

Shrugging her shoulders, Vanessa slumps in the passenger seat. She doesn’t have an answer - Brooke is tapping her nails against the steering wheel in a nervous gesture, Vanessa wants to tell her to stop - and is humming nonchalantly, balling her free hand into a fist of sweater material. Brooke thinks that she understands; she curls her lips into a smile that she believes tells her so. 

“Wish I didn’t have to leave-“. Vanessa chuckles bitterly. 

“-It ain’t getting any easier”. She admits. 

Her eyes well with tears. Brooke’s do, too - Vanessa can tell from the way that Brooke searches for the nearest lay by momentarily, contemplates pulling the car over - and she’s digging her nails into the palm of Brooke’s hand, reminding her that she’s there, will continue to remain there despite being miles away. It’s comforting, to an extent, and Brooke’s tensed posture visibly softens, crumbles at the sight of a tear streaking it’s way down Vanessa’s cheek.

She brushes it away before Brooke’s able to comment, but Brooke doesn’t care, is pulling into a grocery store parking lot across the street and switching off the engine of her car with ease. She tugs Vanessa closer by the hand that she’s still grasping, pulls her into her arms and lets her cry, cries _with_ her, sobs for the distance that doesn’t exist, yet, but will when they arrive at the airport that isn’t more than thirty, forty minutes away. 

Vanessa sniffs into her shoulder, chokes on ragged mumbles and strands of Brooke’s hair that threaten to suffocate her, tickle at her nostrils. She brushes them away, albeit a futile attempt, and is grateful when Brooke is the first to detach herself, holds Vanessa protectively at arms length. She plants her hands on each of Vanessa’s shoulders like she’s going to evaporate, dwindle to the floor and melt akin to the snowflakes that are ephemeral against the glass of her car windows. 

It’s a reminder - a reminder to Brooke as much as it is to Vanessa, that they can do it, _have_ been doing it for over a year, will continue to do so - but Vanessa can’t stop the ache that centres in her chest, travels outwards so that Brooke can feel it in the tears that she brushes away with the pads of her thumbs. The tears don’t quell; Brooke’s heart breaks for her, for them, and she’s opening her mouth to tell her that she loves her, that they can do this when -

\- Vanessa’s phone is ringing.

She looks it at like it’s the cause of all of the problems in her universe. Brooke guesses that it could be - it doesn’t stop sounding on the days before Vanessa’s due to go back to work - but then Vanessa’s sighing, nodding her head apologetically and reaching for said phone. She swipes to answer it as Brooke reaches to mute the radio, gives Vanessa’s shoulder a squeeze with the other.

“Better take it. It’s Katya”. Vanessa signals, turns her phone screen towards Brooke. 

Brooke hums in understanding, doesn’t bat an eyelid as Vanessa puts her phone on loudspeaker - they’re like that, open enough to listen in on business calls - and holds back a chuckle as katya answers with glee. It’s nothing new; Katya calls Vanessa often, has done since she’d finished touring with her, and Brooke listens in to the woman that she’d trained with and the woman that she loves banter back and forth like they’re age old friends. 

It warms her. 

Vanessa is looking over at Brooke with humour and mirth behind her eyes, bites her lip in order to stop giggles bubbling in her chest, pouring out of her mouth. Her eyes are still puffy, red from tears that have yet to fall - Brooke knows that she’ll save that for when she lands in Florida, locks the door of her apartment behind herself - but Katya is rambling, talking over any attempt that Vanessa makes to interrupt until she gets to her point. 

It’s an important point. 

“You ‘gonna tell me why you called, girl? or are ‘ya just looking for somebody to laugh at your bad jokes, _hm_?”. Vanessa teases. 

Brooke knows that she’s merely trying - and succeeding - to lighten the mood that she feels trapped, drowned in, and Katya knows too. She barks out a laugh that echoes through the phone line, becomes a screech in the small confines of Brooke’s jeep, and Vanessa’s laughing along with her, head coming to rest softly on Brooke’s slumped shoulder. 

“Listen up-“. Katya snorts.

“-We’re not here to talk about my wonderful, _otherworldly_ sense of humour. We’re here to talk about a business venture that I think _you_ , Miss Mateo, should definitely consider. Think, like, your _dirty dancing_ moment!, or your chance to live out your wildest _burlesque_ dreams. Think-“. She halts when Vanessa tells her to.

“You’ve lost me-”. Vanessa frowns.

She cocks an eyebrow up towards Brooke, receives a shrug and a frown in response. Brooke is none the wiser - Katya’s rambling is as lost on her as it is Vanessa - and she’s tuning out of the conversation as Katya keeps talking, is burying her head in Vanessa’s hair that smells like her shampoo, this time, all coconut and honey and _calm_. 

“-Where are you goin’ with this?”. Vanessa continues, huffs exasperatedly. 

She’s gone from blissed out, to exhausted, to somber and back in a matter of hours. She doubts that she has the energy left within her body in order to begin dealing with the ominous feelings that Katya’s long-winded tangents bring, is barely able to brush away the confusion even with Brooke pressing delicate kisses to her hairline, stroking her fingers across Vanessa’s tensed knuckles. 

“Well, like I was saying-“. Katya drawls.

“-Trixie’s been investing a lot lately. In up and coming artists, youth groups, you name it and she’s doing it. But I called you and your ass specifically ‘cause there’s a ‘lil something happening over in Cali that I think you _might_ ‘wanna know about”. She finishes. 

Vanessa is still none of the wiser, as is Brooke, who’s tuned her ears back into the conversation at hand, has tilted her head microscopically as her focus has grown, bloomed. She slots her fingers with Vanessa’s instead of menially stroking her knuckles, simpers subtly when Vanessa turns into her body, kisses at Brooke’s shoulder; Brooke doesn’t feel it for all of the layers that she’s clothed in, but it’s there, and it’s something, and Vanessa reminds her of it with a second kiss, a third to the same place.

“Look, either get to the point or ‘lemme go. I have a flight to catch soon and a girlfriend I need to love the _shit_ out of before I can do that”. Vanessa dramatises. 

Swapping her phone from her hand to the dashboard in front of her, Vanessa takes ahold of Brooke’s other hand. She squeezes the both of them in tandem, encourages Brooke as she leans forward in her seat - she’s cautious of the steering wheel pressed to her side, contorts her body around it - and tells Brooke with a single glance that they’ll be fine.

They _will_. 

“Calm down, Jesus, ok-“. Katya grumbles.

“-Long story short, there’s a studio opening there. They want you”. She finishes.

Her words are short, this time, blunt on the rare occasion that Vanessa wishes she had sugar coated them, made them more palatable. They’re like blades to her ears, instead, are slicing their way into her brain that’s short circuiting, burning and combusting with three short words. _They want you_. They want _her_ ; Brooke’s gazing at her with wide eyes, corners of her mouth upturning in a grin.

“Want me? For what?”. Vanessa seeks to clarify. 

“Instructor. Hip hop, probably”. Vanessa can hear the excitement in Katya’s tone.

She can see it forming in Brooke, too, is able to visualise it amounting in her body and emitting itself in grins of pride, squeals of adoration. Brooke’s looking at her like she’s both of those things - proud and in love like Vanessa is - but she’s shaking her head before she can stop herself, is shutting down and mumbling _no, no, I can’t._

“You don’t have to decide right now-“. Katya hurries. 

Vanessa isn’t listening. 

“-Call me back, yeah? Just think about it”. 

The phone line goes dead.

Vanessa wants to get off of the rollercoaster. It’s too much, all of it. She’s dipping again, is right back to the headspace that she knows is negative, draining, and neglects to hold back the tears that fall when Brooke pulls her into her chest once more, allows Vanessa to break into shards of glass; Brooke will put them back together, blood and gashes on her hands be damned. 

“‘Ness”. Brooke soothes, rubs her back soothingly. 

“No-“. Vanessa shakes her head adamantly. 

“-I couldn’t do it. I _won’t_ do it. I can’t - can’t deal with this _fuckin_ ’ distance anymore, Brooke”. She sobs. 

Brooke bites her tongue. She does so in order to stop her own tears from falling - Vanessa doesn’t need the added weight of her emotions in that moment, doesn’t need an extra factor at play in how hard she feels the need to clutch at Brooke’s back - and is burying her nose into the silk strands of Vanessa’s hair once more. 

Vanessa allows her to do so, only pulls back when her body has stopped trembling, shaking like a tree in a blistering breeze, and glances up mutely into Brooke’s eyes that are glazed over. Brooke blinks once, forces down all of the feelings that pierce their ways through her chest when she looks at Vanessa, and opts for attempting to centre her breathing instead.

It doesn’t work. 

“That’s uh-“. Brooke starts.

“-That could be a great opportunity for you”. She reasons. 

Vanessa knows.

“You really think so?”. Vanessa chuckles, unamused. 

“Think about it”. Brooke suggests -

\- and Vanessa does.

She thinks about it as Brooke starts the engine back up after pressing a chaste kiss to her lips, and thinks about it throughout the entirety of their drive towards the airport. She thinks about it as she bids Brooke a broken farewell, continues to do so on her three hour flight back to Florida that feels like it lasts a lifetime. She thinks about it before she falls to sleep that night, and awakens to a dilemma that still remains unsolved. 

Vanessa doesn’t know. 

*****

Vanessa mulls it over for a week, and then she _does_ know. 

She calls Brooke at two in the morning - Brooke’s still awake, is running over music choices for an upcoming class on her laptop, Henry sat at her side - and is relieved when she picks up on the third ring, a cheerful lilt to her voice. Brooke closes her laptop with a click, slips it onto the floor at her feet and curls further into the couch. Vanessa is patient when Brooke tells her that she’s getting comfortable, and listens intently as Brooke switches off the murmurs of the television in the background. 

It’s calm, silent.

Brooke presses her head backwards into the leather of her couch, nestles her feet beneath a pillow that’s fluffy, soft against her skin, and tugs a blanket across her lap that she has folded over the back of said couch. She wraps it around herself, holds her phone between her cheek and her shoulder, and closes her eyes to the sight of the dimly lit room; her home has started to feel less and less familiar, the yellow lighting ghastly and unwanted. 

She burrows further, further still, is only brought out of her stupor by a giggle that floats down the phone line, infiltrates her ears and her mind in a way that she still isn’t certain how Vanessa manages to achieve. She chuckles lightly in response, breathes out a hello that echoes, bounces off of the high, white ceilings of Brooke’s apartment, and braces herself for the something that she can tell is coming from the hesitation prevalent in Vanessa’s tender hums. 

“I can hear you brain turning from here”. Brooke laughs, it feels forced. 

“ _Fuck_ -“. Vanessa sighs.

Brooke wishes she could make sense of the words on her tongue. None of them add up, multiply to a sentence that she’d be happy with, and instead remains mute, encourages Vanessa with only the empty space between them that she can provide. Vanessa’s breathing is steady in her ear, steadier than hers and more even than the rhythm of her heart, thudding in and out of her ribcage. 

“-Ok, I need to tell you somethin’, and I need you to be open”. Vanessa states seriously. 

It feels different. Vanessa’s talking to her in a tone that she’s only ever used a handful of times before - discussing family, friends, _futures_ \- and Brooke knows that it _is_ different when Vanessa clears her throat, huffs out a ragged breath that she’d been holding for a second too long. The wait for Vanessa to say something is agonising, painstaking, and when another beat passes, Brooke trembles; she’s filling the space with words that she knows aren’t necessary.

“You’re making me nervous”. Brooke whispers. 

“Give me a minute, I need to find the balls”. Vanessa jokes.

It’s stupid. It’s stupid, funny, so dumb and unequivocally Vanessa that Brooke grins, unrestrained. She beams into the vacant room, nods her head to herself and giggles so that Vanessa knows she’s heard her. Brooke listens, continues to wait, and she’s put at ease by Vanessa’s tentative humming, the build up to what Brooke thinks she can already predict. 

“Is this about LA?”. Brooke tries.

It is. 

“ _Bitch_ , how did you-“. Vanessa starts, cuts herself off.

Brooke had an incline. She could hear it in Vanessa’s humour, her attempts to conceal her worry, and knew it was regarding the offer Katya had proposed, laid bare on the table as soon as Vanessa had called at a little later than two in the morning. Brooke doesn’t think that Vanessa is predictable, not by a long shot, but when Vanessa’s grunting into her ear, telling her that _yes_ , this is about said offer, Brooke knows that they have each other worked out.

“Just a feeling”. Brooke settles. 

“Well, I-“. Vanessa begins.

“- _Yeah_ , I’m ‘gonna do it“. She proclaims.

Brooke had thought as much. 

The pride for Vanessa runs rampant through her veins, centres in her heart that’s so full that she swears it expands beyond the confines of her body. She doesn’t begin to explain it - she doesn’t think she could even if she tried - and is telling Vanessa that it’s great news, congratulations, you’ll be amazing. Brooke has no doubt that she will be; Vanessa is talented, worthy of so much, but Brooke can’t quell the loneliness that settles on her shoulders.

“Baby, that’s-“. Brooke doesn’t finish her sentence before Vanessa’s chiming in. 

It’s sudden.

“I want you to come with me”. Vanessa blurts.

It’s careless but calculated, not thought out and yet so precisely executed that Brooke finds herself wondering how long Vanessa had sat and contemplated her words, rehearsed them to herself in backstage dressing rooms, overcrowded hotel lobbies. They come out so convincingly that Brooke thinks that she instantly knows her answer - _yes yes yes_ \- but then Vanessa is talking, again, and Brooke misses sentences, entire chunks of speech that she reals back in. 

“What?”. Brooke stumbles, eyes scrunching closed. 

“They want both of us”. She can hear the smile in Vanessa’s voice.

_They want both of us._

_Us._

_Brooke and Vanessa._

“Me? _Us_?”. She checks.

“ _Us_ , god damn it”. Vanessa sighs.

She does so dreamily, hangs on to the disbelief in Brooke’s voice like it’s the only tether she has left to reality, and when Brooke’s stuttering out a response that she hasn’t yet crafted, she continues. Vanessa’s determined to convince her, despite being certain that Brooke’s sluggish responses are confirmation enough, and opens her mouth once more, licks across her bottom lip; her throat is dry from the suspense that fogs up the air. 

“Katya recommended us, well, Trixie did too, but _Katya_ -”. Vanessa emphasises, relents when Brooke begins talking.

“Recommended us? To who?”. Brooke doesn’t believe it.

“Shea, the woman opening the studio, she’s-“. Vanessa gets cut off once more. 

“ _Wait_ -“. Brooke swallows.

“-Shea who?”. She questions.

She’s able to envisage the smile upon Vanessa’s face before she hears it, proud and getting prouder by the second as she informs Brooke of all of it, everything, each minor detail that she gets spoon fed. Vanessa tells her of Shea and Sasha - the same Shea that has coached both Brooke and Katya during college, after college - and jokes that it’s _fate_ when Brooke is lost for words once more, clams in on herself as her mind goes into overdrive. 

“Think it over-“. Vanessa soothes, Brooke feels like their roles have reversed. 

“-I’ll send you the email they sent me, explains shit a lot better if you ‘wanna look”. She offers

Brooke accepts, gratefully, and keeps the thought in her mind throughout the rest of their conversation that moves on, progresses to Vanessa discussing wanting to dye her hair and Brooke wanting to cut her own once more. It’s all familiar once again, is normal, and when Vanessa hangs up half an hour later, tells Brooke that she loves her and that she should sleep, Brooke thinks that she already knows her answer.

_Yes_.

*****

They stick to their words. 

When they both move to California three months later after wrapping things up in their respective home towns, tying off loose ends that they needn’t revisit, they celebrate Brooke’s birthday with takeout pizza on the floor of their new apartment. It’s hot, stuffy - no more so than Florida, Brooke argues - and they prop the windows open with stacks of old books that had sat untouched on Brooke’s bookshelf for over a handful of years, allow their balcony doors to swing back and forth in the humid breeze. 

Vanessa sits with her legs outstretched across Brooke’s lap, Henry at her side with her toes curled into the woven rug that they’d taken from Vanessa’s old apartment. Brooke keeps one arm loosely wrapped around Vanessa’s back as she works her way through said pizza, wipes her greasy fingertips on the sun kissed skin of Vanessa’s thighs; it’s a joke, Vanessa laughs, pecks her on the lips through the laughter that refuses to die down even as the sun falls from the sky, casts them in darkness. 

Brooke switches on a lamp. 

It’s not bright, barely succeeds in illuminating the outlines of each other’s features, but Brooke swears that it doesn’t matter. She can see Vanessa, can make out the curves and dips of her face, her body, just fine, and ensures to prove her point through a kiss that lasts and lasts, flows in and out of their mouths like a trickle of honey. 

They don’t make it to bed.

Brooke fucks Vanessa as tenderly as she ever has into their couch - they bought it new, Vanessa demanding that they could with their new salaries at the studio - and keeps going even as Vanessa rambles aimlessly about decor around her moans. She wants magnolia walls with accents of lemon and peach, wants silk bed sheets in every shade of pink that she can imagine and wants sets of cutlery to coordinate with their already matching mugs.

She wants _all_ of it, and Brooke promises it to her as she kisses down the length of her body, Vanessa’s fingers winding in her hair and pulling her so close that Brooke tears up. Brooke still thinks she’s dreaming, even as Vanessa’s calling out her name. They’re in the same city, same apartment, their apartment, and neither have a plane ticket folded up in their suitcases, neither awaiting a looming phone call that this time never comes.

Brooke cherishes it, basks in the afterglow of it with Vanessa trailing a hand down her body, kissing across her jaw and up to her ear where she whispers _welcome home_. It makes her shiver, and Brooke doesn’t believe that any of it is real until she drives both herself and Vanessa home from their first day at the studio the following day, having greeted her outside with a languid peck. 

Vanessa keeps her hand planted firmly on Brooke’s knee as she drives, and Brooke knows -

\- she made the right choice. 

**Author's Note:**

> as usual i'm on tumblr @silverhytes !!


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